As my son, Will, marched out into a muggy, rainy June day, his size 13 sneakered feet protruding from beneath his floor-length green high school graduation robe, tasseled mortar board hat askew, my heart clenched with grief.
I watched him, a good head taller than his Dad and his sisters smoking a cigar, gesticulating, thumping his buddies' backs and knew: he was gone.
He had been leaving - bit by bit - for months, and the encroaching sadness creeping over my shoulders became a cloak of despair. As he whirled in and out of parties, I withdrew deeper into its folds.
I had first tasted this particular sadness when his sister had graduated from college, but, then, I still had him - or clung to that erroneous illusion that our children belong to us. The heart-wrench of this child's launching could be postponed. His Dad and I had divorced when he was three and there were relationships that didn't work out; another marriage had dissolved. We had moved from a large house on a hilltop that had, by its intrusion into a forested ridge line area, infuriated the neighbors, into a house smaller than our barn had been.
Losses and changes.
Shortly after Will's graduation day, I tearfully summoned him home. I confessed that I couldn't cope, that I needed help, and that I was that day checking myself into the Brattleboro Retreat, a small psychiatric hospital. A small suitcase was by the door.
"Okay, Mom," he said.
Oh my goodness Amy you have been busy. What a wonderful collection of your life and experiences. I surely can identify with the Labor Intensive. However, when I was wheeled into the admission office of Columbia Presbyterian to be admitted with our first child, the lady in charge had no papers of me on file and needed for my husband to begin filling out all the pertinent info for me to go to the birthing floor. "By God," Henry shouted, "my wife is about to have a baby and I need to get her to the birthing floor this instance". The head of the baby was slowly beginning to protrube and it would not be long before a baby would see the light of day. Yes, I got to the proper floor within minutes and not a minute too soon before the doctor was there to assist our first born. He arrived with very little help and was a good sizeable weight of 8lbs 3 oz and I was a mere 100lbs plus 20 lbs gained during pregnancy.. Hurray, all those folks telling me I would have hours of holy hell in labor , I figured this was my lucky day and popping out babies was my forte!
ReplyDeleteAmy, I love your stories and am eager to read as many as you can send me. Wonder if there is a magazine you could send them to. ? Keep going ;you are on a roll. Kathie