Susan Senator

I’ve always lived in New England, so these long winter vacations at home are very familiar to me.  Memories of the whiteness and the pervasive cold are as much a part of my days as an extra sweater and socks.  And being a mother during winter vacation is perhaps the most familiar feeling of all — although now that I’m seeing that we all really do get older and things change, I am aware that even winter motherhood won’t always be like this.

My first child moved out and it was like he was ripped from my womb.  As melodramatic as that sounds, it felt that horrible to me.  I think this feeling was because I also needed him to leave, I wanted him to leave, and that fact hurt as much as having him gone.  Friends tell me that even when the child who moves out is “typical,” the feelings are mixed like that — you both want him to go and you are sad to see him go.  Each of us feels a different degree of readiness for that passage to happen.  I was ready for Nat to go, but that fact deepened my pain, because all my life I had vowed that I would not do that.  I would not Go Residential (interesting that I thought of it that way, the same construction as Go Insane); I would hang on to Nat and keep him with us.  So when I needed him to move out, it felt like a failure, a broken promise.

It is neither of those.  It was painful, but that didn’t mean it was wrong.  Nat’s move-out was the best thing that ever happened to him, other than going to Extreme Sports Camp for Autism, learning to ride a bike, going with me to Disney, and joining Special Olympics.  These leaps of his were such risks at the time, depending on his age and developmental stage, but they ended up being moments that propelled him into an utterly new way of being.

Faced now with my second child leaving, I find some of these dynamics recurring, shaped specifically around Max, but familiar and scary all the same.  Last night Max called us to say he was spending the night at his girlfriend’s house.  Max is a few months shy of 19, a young man who has traveled on his own, who works nearly fulltime, whose cap is feathered with many adult achievements.  It is not the first overnight he has had with Hannah.  But last night, Nat was very aware that Max wasn’t home.  He has become increasingly aware of Max’s whereabouts, of his new activities, like not being here for dinner, like driving and like staying out way beyond our bedtime.  Max’s presence is unpredictable, and Nat is adjusting to that.  Like the changing of vans, seasons, bedsheets, and breakfast routines, Nat notices the changes around Max with great interest and discomfort.

When Max called, Nat bolted downstairs; he seemed to have been waiting for this.  “Max will come home,” he said almost immediately.  He was straining to hear what Max was saying on the phone to Ned.

“Okay, you’re staying at Hannah’s tonight,” Ned was saying into the phone.  I looked at Nat in dread.
“Max will sleep home,” Nat said.

“No, Sweetie,” I said.  “He’s staying at Hannah’s.  He’ll be home tomorrow before lunch.  You want to talk to him?”  I figured maybe it would feel good to him to hear Max’s voice.  Max is always willing to talk to Nat; sometimes he talks to him when we are out, when Nat calls from his group home.  Max always has a smile in his voice when he greets Nat:  “Hey Nat, what’s up.”  Nat often answers him.  I think Max is tickled by how much Nat pays attention to him.  Max accepts this warm attention as naturally as he accepts all of the admiration that comes his way.  He’s a golden soul; he’s always been loved by the world, and he has always given love as easily.

I don’t think Nat can remember a time when Max was not there, because Max is only 2 years younger.  When you show Nat baby pictures of himself or Max, he says it’s Ben.  Ben is the only baby Nat has known.  Max was never a baby, in Nat’s experience.  Max was his Constant.

Max waited on the other end of the line to talk to Nat, but Nat did not want to.  We said goodbye to Max and I could see Nat tense up.  Here was one of the most familiar sights and feelings of my life:  all of Nat’s tremendous energy compressing into frustration and panic.  I get a flash of panic that I won’t be able to handle him, that all will spiral out of control.  I looked at his hands and I remembered his sudden pinches and scratches, the way he’d become like a human thresher, slashing at us rhythmically, unstoppably.

But no, that is not what happened.  I knew it wasn’t going to happen.  That stuff is in the past.  Nat is not a machine, he is a complicated adult whose understanding of the world is becoming both clearer and more layered.  “Sit here, Nat,” I said, reaching for his hands, trusting that they were just hands, even though they were curled tightly in tension at the moment.  He sat and said again, “Max will sleep here.”

Ned explained gently that Nat was not sleeping here tonight.  We both repeated the litany, that Max would be there, but would come home late morning.

Nat listened, his body bent over heavily.  At last he said, “Max will put on pajamas.”  This meant he was beginning to imagine Max sleeping somewhere else, and he was trying to work out all the logistics.  Where would his pajamas come from?  Did he have a toothbrush?  Unlike Nat, I do not want to know the answers to those questions, but I told Nat with great certainty that Max had pajamas there and that he would still be able to brush his teeth.  All would go on, differently but normally.

Ned brought out the chocolate, our family’s medicine, and Nat accepted some, but not with the usual enthusiasm.  He was definitely bothered by Max’s absence, saddened by it, but also trying to move on.  I only hope I can be as gracious when Max leaves in the fall.