I’ve always lived in New England, so these long winter vacations at home are very familiar to me.\u00a0 Memories of the whiteness and the pervasive cold are as much a part of my days as an extra sweater and socks.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
My first child moved out and it was like he was ripped from my womb.\u00a0 As melodramatic as that sounds, it felt that horrible to me.\u00a0 I think this feeling was because I also needed him to leave, I wanted<\/em> him to leave, and that fact hurt as much as having him gone.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Each of us feels a different degree of readiness for that passage to happen.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 So when I needed him to move out, it felt like a failure, a broken promise.<\/p>\n It is neither of those.\u00a0 It was painful, but that didn’t mean it was wrong.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 Last night Max called us to say he was spending the night at his girlfriend’s house.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It is not the first overnight he has had with Hannah.\u00a0 But last night, Nat was very aware that Max wasn’t home.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Max’s presence is unpredictable, and Nat is adjusting to that.\u00a0 Like the changing of vans, seasons, bedsheets, and breakfast routines, Nat notices the changes around Max with great interest and discomfort.<\/p>\n When Max called, Nat bolted downstairs; he seemed to have been waiting for this.\u00a0 “Max will come home,” he said almost immediately.\u00a0 He was straining to hear what Max was saying on the phone to Ned.<\/p>\n “Okay, you’re staying at Hannah’s tonight,” Ned was saying into the phone.\u00a0 I looked at Nat in dread. “No, Sweetie,” I said.\u00a0 “He’s staying at Hannah’s.\u00a0 He’ll be home tomorrow before lunch.\u00a0 You want to talk to him?”\u00a0 I figured maybe it would feel good to him to hear Max’s voice.\u00a0 Max is always willing to talk to Nat; sometimes he talks to him when we are out, when Nat calls from his group home.\u00a0 Max always has a smile in his voice when he greets Nat:\u00a0 “Hey Nat, what’s up.”\u00a0 Nat often answers him.\u00a0 I think Max is tickled by how much Nat pays attention to him.\u00a0 Max accepts this warm attention as naturally as he accepts all of the admiration that comes his way.\u00a0 He’s a golden soul; he’s always been loved by the world, and he has always given love as easily.<\/p>\n I don’t think Nat can remember a time when Max was not there, because Max is only 2 years younger.\u00a0 When you show Nat baby pictures of himself or Max, he says it’s Ben.\u00a0 Ben is the only baby Nat has known.\u00a0 Max was never a baby, in Nat’s experience.\u00a0 Max was his Constant.<\/p>\n Max waited on the other end of the line to talk to Nat, but Nat did not want to.\u00a0 We said goodbye to Max and I could see Nat tense up.\u00a0 Here was one of the most familiar sights and feelings of my life:\u00a0 all of Nat’s tremendous energy compressing into frustration and panic.\u00a0 I get a flash of panic that I won’t be able to handle him, that all will spiral out of control.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n But no, that is not what happened.\u00a0 I knew it wasn’t going to happen.\u00a0 That stuff is in the past.\u00a0 Nat is not a machine, he is a complicated adult whose understanding of the world is becoming both clearer and more layered.\u00a0 “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.\u00a0 He sat and said again, “Max will sleep here.”<\/p>\n Ned explained gently that Nat was not sleeping here tonight.\u00a0 We both repeated the litany, that Max would be there, but would come home late morning.<\/p>\n Nat listened, his body bent over heavily.\u00a0 At last he said, “Max will put on pajamas.”\u00a0 This meant he was beginning to imagine Max sleeping somewhere else, and he was trying to work out all the logistics.\u00a0 Where would his pajamas come from?\u00a0 Did he have a toothbrush?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 All would go on, differently but normally.<\/p>\n Ned brought out the chocolate, our family’s medicine, and Nat accepted some, but not with the usual enthusiasm.\u00a0 He was definitely bothered by Max’s absence, saddened by it, but also trying to move on.\u00a0 I only hope I can be as gracious when Max leaves in the fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve always lived in New England, so these long winter vacations at home are very familiar to me.\u00a0 Memories of the whiteness and the pervasive cold are as much a part of my days as an extra sweater and socks.\u00a0 And being a mother during winter vacation is perhaps the most familiar feeling of all 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\n“Max will sleep home,” Nat said.<\/p>\n