I just finished making my daughter’s bed. In the normal course of a day’s events, this would not be anything worthy of note, it’s something mothers do, a way of tidying up. What makes it something to write about is the mere fact that she was here for a visit, ten days’ worth. Now she’s gone, back to that place I find myself referring to as ‘home’. It just rolls off my tongue. That place she’s lived for three years now, the other coast. Sunny L.A.
This is home, too, always will be in that memory bank of hers, an odd image as I write but one so suitable to what we think of in terms of savoring and squandering. When she first left for college, back when the notion of her coming and going had a predictable rhythm, people would ask: how does it feel to have an empty nest? To which I quip, ‘My nest isn’t empty, it’s just a little quieter.’ Of course, the dog was very much alive and barking and keeping me busy and entertained in the way dogs do. And the dog’s presence – what she added to that place we call home – was something my daughter counted on more than anything else during holiday or summer breaks.
The dog is gone, a year now, though not my daughter’s relentlessness about my (a.k.a.) her need for a replacement. There is no replacing a dog that lived with you for thirteen years. A dog with her very own personality that any other dog would forever be measured against. There is, though, some sense in some people’s minds that home, by definition and/or suggestion, needs a dog.
My home does not need a dog as much as it needs a daughter. Her cosmetics bag and toothbrush on the vanity in the bathroom. Her clothes sprawled on the floor of her bedroom. Her complaints about the thermostat being too low. Her nestling under a fleece blanket to watch TV, flanked by that duo she used to call ‘’rents.’ Her need for me as she falls asleep, not feeling so great.
Her unmade bed.
* * *
A writer puts down words, intent on expressing some urgent thought, some deep reflection. A week has passed since my daughter went back to that other home of hers. A week during which I read Joan Didion’s exquisitely poignant Blue Nights. Why I would even choose to read a book ostensibly about a favorite writer’s recalling moments surrounding the life of her daughter, now gone, seems perverse. And yet it makes all the sense in the world. When we talk about mortality, she writes, we are talking about our children.
Now comes the wrap-up, the thought left unfinished.
I head into my kitchen, daylight nearing its end, the sky a twilight blue artists dream of. The moon, pearly yellow, a lone pendant on a chandelier of tree branches. I stand in front of the window, completely riveted by its commanding presence. Everything about this moon on this night, January 8, 2012 (a week since my daughter has gone back to that place I’ve come to think of as her other home), calls to mind a picture book I read to her when she was young, Happy Birthday, Moon. There is a bear, in this delightful story by Frank Asch, so entranced by the moon, he wants to give it a birthday present. Only problem is that he doesn’t know when the moon’s birthday is, or what to get him. He climbs a tall tree, to have a chat with the moon. No response.
Maybe I am too far away, thought Bear, and the moon cannot hear me.
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I love that Frank Asch book–and his others. Simple beauty.
Lately I have been immersed in thoughts that swirl endlessly around all the truths no one can tell you in advance about parenting–about how achingly difficult it is to equip a child for the world they will explore without us, and how impossible it is for us to let them go without a gaping hole. Meteors…that’s what kids are…beautiful, powerful, life-changing meteors.
Love your musings on being not quite an empty nester. I’m launching into a new home a few miles away with my new partner and leaving my 16 yr. old son to live with his father (his choice). He’s been moving in that direction over the past few years but I wasn’t prepared to sever his presence in my life so early. It’s a bittersweet development as our children make their own choices and entrancing to me to see him become a unique and charming young man albeit more distant. We live, learn hopefully and continue to do our best. I hope you’ll come out to the left coast one day and perhaps we can share these musings in person.
Heartfelt and wonderfully written. When my youngest daughter treks the day’s drive from her away home to her here home and back for a visit between terms, I find bits and pieces of her life left in her rush to return to her away home: bobby pins in the dryer (which starts to choke and cough as soon as she leaves!), a pair of her boyfriend’s socks under the couch, a pile of suddenly necessary curtains that once again won’t fit into her suitcase without a hefty baggage fee, Q-tips slathered in black mascara and vasoline like some painter’s brush, a bowl – crusty around the edges with hemp granola – hidden beneath a decades old Winnie the Pooh facecloth, beneath yet another yoga book and a months-old telephone message. And sometimes, the boyfriend is still here days later, missing her, just missing her…
I enjoyed reading your post, because my situation is completely opposite to yours. Both of my grown children live with me for financial reasons and they would do anything to find their own place or places. But given the nature of our economy this has proven very difficult. So we have had to learn how to live together as adults and we are more a bunch of roommates than mother and daughters. However, there are those rare moments when I treasure their being with me. I know that eventually they will have to leave and I have lived without them when they went to school in different places, but I do love being with them and the occasional discomfort of living so close is nothing to the fact that we see each other every day and we don’t have to talk on phones or Skype.
“The moon, pearly yellow, a lone pendant on a chandelier of tree branches.” – Gorgeous!
This is a darling story! Your writing style hooks me immediately, and each draws me deeper into the story until I’m standing there, next to you, staring at your daughter’s unmade bed.
A lovely, poignant post. Reminds me very much of my daughter who returned to college a few weeks ago.
Oh Deborah, what a poignant post. I’m not a mother, so I can’t say I understand what you’re going through. But because of your lovely and loving words (in a beautifully melancholy tone), I can imagine the emptiness, the longing, and the desire to seek companionship and comfort from the book. Sounds like a wonderful picture book. I’ll HAVE TO check this out!
Claudine
Deborah. What a beautiful piece. it almost feels like trespassing into your most cherished thoughts and I thank you for your gift of the words. I have to say that when I have lost a four legged family member that another one shows up looking for a soft spot to sleep and a place to fill its belly. We never forget the ones that walked with us through those times in our lives, but I think what a lucky pup it will be when he/she shows up.
Bittersweet and lovely…
I am a mom to four cats (one of which turns 21 next month.) I realize sometimes, that my entire adult life has been spent with this wonderful creature. Oh the things she’s seen! We have nurtured each other, shaped each other and someday, she may be too far away, but I think she’ll still hear me.
Be well,
Melissa
Oh my–that is quite a life for a cat! How lucky for you–you must have cared for your kitty so wonderfully…
A wonderful thoughful piece Deborah, traces of people and animals and events always remain and favourite stories are a beautiful reminder of shared moments.
I can’t imagine what that future looks like yet, I am content to wait and for now to share the experience of others like you who allow us the gift of an insight.
What a beautiful post! You are clearly ahead of me Deborah. Right now, I can’t wait for my daughters to go anywhere they want in order to have a full night of sleep. Life is unfair isn’t it, we even have too much or too little of a child.