The week leading up to graduation day was not as it should be. In between work schedules, trying to get the fishing business into the water for the year and general hustle, what was lacking was any sense of excitement or pride for my son. In its place were immersive levels of grief and regret. Grief for the last of my babies leaving the nest. Regret for all I didn't do for them.
I've been down the empty nest grief road twice before. We're all so busy keeping balls or knives in the air and racing from event to event that we don't see it coming. The emptiness slaps the face and echoes off bare walls.
The actual graduation day was of course, joyful as it should be. The weather was perfect- sunny and hot- right up to 3:50 p.m. when the skies let loose and we scurried into the suffocation of a way-past-firecode gymnasium. My child walked across the stage, took their diploma and smiled the 'goodbye assholes' smile. We had a good party while waiting for the electricity to come back on.
The school had not been a good fit for them. This 4 year revelation process occurred after 6 years of post-divorce strife and constant financial panic. I was acutely aware that week, not of everything I'd done and fought for on their behalf, but of all of their suffering and my ineffectuality in making it better.
When the 3 were little, I felt I knew my place in the world, my strength and nurturing, my value as a person. Perhaps for that reason, I got stuck. Very stuck. Stuck in wanting their 3, 5 or 12 year old selves and my life during that time to come back. It's of course irrational, but extremely powerful. A faded plastic toy half buried in the grass where it had been dropped a dozen years ago would bring on the flood, because to me it was last week. The colors were still bright; the sounds of play still so immediate. The small hand in mine warm and innocent.
Getting unstuck hurts like a motherfucker. And it's messy.
The week after graduation started hopefully, with them and I sitting down on a miserable chilly Saturday afternoon to nail down a loan for freshman year. I thought co-signing was a check-off. I thought I was not the guy of 11 years ago in the midst of a financial meltdown. I'd relentlessly busted ass and somehow made a little something of myself. Well, the good folks and software at Campus Door did not share my improved self image.
On the happier side, the 2 younger offspring came out to the island to hang in their childhood home and help with setting lobster gear. The moment they stepped off the ferry, their demeanors changed instantly. As was always the case, when they stepped in the door at 33 South Road, the weight and tension melted off them. A little later, one was quietly upstairs and the other was asleep by the wood stove.
As healing as it felt and as happy as I was to have them home, I knew something was coming. I knew I couldn't stay in the warm pool of nostalgia with them.
At the end of the week the three of us drove into the mountains for a couple of days of celebratory hiking and pool lounging.
On the last night after a minor conflict, I wandered over to the motel playground. This was a portal to motherfuckering painful personal growth. The colors of the slide and swings were bright. It was empty. Grass grew long up through it. My babies were not going to come running and bickering and demanding pushes. They would not push and shove up the ladder to come down the slide. Still in some part of me, I waited. I was a ghost only now coming to realize it and finally seeing the long grass as it got dark.
It took several more days to work through.
My adult children are amazing and I'm lucky to be part of their lives. It's a good time to move on.
