As I was blow-drying my hair one morning about 15 years ago, my son Quinn appeared at the bathroom door–fully dressed, backpack in hand–and announced, You need to get going, Mom. Remember, you have a faculty meeting this morning. And he was right. I was running late, and I did, indeed, have an early morning meeting. But when did he change from son to personal assistant? When did he willingly turn off early morning cartoons, pack his own backpack, and wait on me?
Several years later, my husband and I sat in our car in the mall parking lot behind the Air Force Recruiting Office where a bus traveling to Lackland AFB in San Antonio was soon to depart. We watched as our daughter, Marinne–all 95 soaking-wet pounds of her–lugged her gear to the bus, boarded without looking back, and left us for basic training. When did she get such resolve, such courage, such fierce confidence? And when, weeks later, we attended her graduation ceremony and heard her address adults as ma’am and sir, saw her stand at solemn attention in dress blues, somehow taller and older than the girl we had known, I turned to my husband and said, When did she become this woman?
It was shortly after this that I joined my daughter, Megan, in Switzerland for a short European vacation. She had just finished a semester of study abroad in Spain and flew to Zurich to meet me. From there, we rented a car and drove through the country to Geneva. Megan drove, Megan handled the money, Megan ordered the food, Megan led. And I followed. I recall a moment in which, childlike, I opened my hands to reveal a palmful of euros and said What do you need? And when she suggested that we tandem para-glide in the Alps? I followed her lead, and we leapt off an alp into brisk, Swiss air, strapped to two guides who (thankfully) were veteran gliders and appeared to have all limbs still intact and no visible scars. When did she become the mother and I, the child? When did the strong-willed child become the fully competent adult?
A few years later, my daughter, Collyn, gave birth to my first grandchild, Gracyn. I stood at her hospital bedside, heard the doctor deliver the news that Gracyn was breach, and he had just ordered a c-section. And I watched her fear give way to the sacrificing love of motherhood. When did my baby become a woman who would bear a baby? When did the girl I had taken care of become a caretaker herself?
The past years have been a progression of transference, each year, each event giving way to another watershed moment of child-becoming-adult, of those who-needed-cared-for becoming those-who-care-for. Such is the progression of time and the natural order of release. But oh, how the years have flown! All parents say this. And cliched as it is, it is nonetheless a bittersweet truth.
It is this handing over of care-taking and decision-making that both amazes and scares the living hell out of me, though. For I know there will be a time when I am wholly dependent upon my children to check up on me, drive me, care for me. And as grateful as I am for my four glorious caretakers, I also lament the inevitable final transfer from mother to child.
In a season of transference, I don’t think it is much about power but, rather, about purpose. When you are the mother-in-charge, you have a clear purpose that guides your every moment. You go to bed thinking (obsessing?) over the parenting decisions you made–or failed to make–and you mentally run over the calendar of events and appointments that you must not forget. Lest one of your children doesn’t get a fluoride treatment or you miss the Muffins with Mom event at school or someone’s PE clothes aren’t washed and packed for the next day. Your purpose is to stay on top of things. One step ahead of the game, always. You are needed to run your family, for most mothers understand that most fathers will fall into bed and, within seconds, snore their way into oblivion. No mental calendaring for then. No siree.
This season requires deliberate repurposing. When your daughter calls to ensure that you have told everyone about upcoming Christmas plans and when your son asks you to text him when you arrive at your destination (to make sure you made it in one piece!), you repurpose. You have raised responsible, caring young adults, and your new purpose is to celebrate this. Some may whine about being relegated back into a kind of childhood, but not you. You relish the transfer. You wear a coat of many colors: joy, comfort, peace. Look at my children, the responsible ones! See how they care for me!
The season of transference begins when we are often too busy, too preoccupied with the daily grind to notice. But it begins and inches forward, the tortoise in our world of hares. Its slow and steady feet move imperceptibly, but they move. And on that day, in that moment in which you catch sight of the tortoise, you blink hard, and your breath catches.
In “Letters to My Daughters,” poet Judith Minty writes:
I give you this to take with you:
Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can
begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.
In a season of transference, there is joy in the uprooting, for nothing remains as it was. In many ways, I am an uprooted woman. My children are grown, my life’s work retired, I need transplanting, to begin again.
If tomorrow brings some sun, I will separate the hostas that have overgrown their bed and transplant them under the lilac bush in a spot where grass doesn’t grow. In this season of transference, I’m looking for a spot where grass fails to grow, where I might plant my uprooted self for repurposing.
And I will take much solace in the fact that my children-turned-caretakers will see that I’m regularly mulched, watered, and fertilized. Indeed, one could do worse.
