Why Have You Been Searching For Me?

The following is a devotional I wrote for my church community’s Advent Season. We were asked to write using the theme of “Yes…and” which of course, I eagerly responded to, since the Sacred Both/Ands of life are a spiritual reality I find deeply meaningful, revealing, awakening, expansive, and full of grace, opposing the binary either/ors of myopic and fist-gripped ideologies.

I like to write things both heady, and things poetic and heartfelt. Writing in general, but especially sharing it, feels vulnerable. Sharing both the heady stuff, and heart-y stuff, takes courage, but the latter feels most vulnerable. I almost didn’t share this, not even with my own church community. But I thought about how little is shared about this aspect of parenting of which this devotional is about. Mostly, though, and this is the vulnerable piece, is that it is about me and my response to it.

I think there is a sense of isolation when parents send their kids off to college, or some other path of independent living. Where is everyone else who is doing this? Plus, we just don’t talk about the pain, grief, and sucker punch it is to the stomach. Sure, it isn’t the end of parenting, nor is it an end to the relationship, but it still hurts. It’s the beginning of what will likely be the lengthiest part of this relationship, where mentoring still occurs, support is still needed, but friendship flourishes, and joys materialize, seeing how our young adults are making an impact. Still, this is a threshold that is filled with wrenching emotion and grief. Deaths, literal and metaphorical, are worthy of grief, and sometimes celebration (of a life well lived, of freedom from suffering, etc.). Transitions are worthy of grief and celebration, too. Yes, it’s a celebration, my firstborn’s college matriculation, and it’s a grief- a surprisingly difficult one.

Where/who could I turn to after having just let the fledgling fly? There weren’t many options. So I decided to write and share this, like other brave mamas and papas have, in the hopes of adding another voice to the transition. Maybe it will help normalize the surprising feelings that are deeper than what we might have expected when we came to this stretching of wings. Parenting through adolescence into early adulthood is a messy and agonizing existence (can we please acknowledge how hard it is to raise teens, too?), and can feel especially lonely when those adolescent years are coupled with special needs. At times, I’d have given anything to go back to the infant, toddling, and terrible threes stages. Yet, I valued the budding shift (and admittedly loved it- I mean, now we could watch movies and shows I’d been waiting to introduce, we can have deeper conversations, I begin to learn from her in new ways, all while humbly realizing my generational fade of prominence)…and soon there will be the adult (ish) relationship we’ll have together. But, when we’re new at this, we have babies thinking this will be our life from now on. The diapers, the bedtime stories, extra curricular activities, birthday parties, school functions, summer lemonade stands…But oh, yeah!  That’s right…they do indeed become adults (after all, only about 1/4 of our average lifespan is in childhood…). But we don’t think much about that, do we? Becoming parents, our minds are more concerned with the short, less than two decades part of parenting, perhaps just the first decade of it! We know they’ll become teenagers, then adults, and go forth into the world, but when they do, we’re like, “Wait, what?! WTF just happened?!”

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 …I know I don’t possess you; with all my heart God bless you…” (lyrics excerpted from Abba’s 1976 tune, My Love, My Life)

Luke 2:48-50 “Why have you been searching for me?” 

My daughter, Taylor and I went to see the movie musical, Mama Mia 2: Here We Go Again, close to the time she was to leave for college. As the cast’s version of Abba’s 1976 tune, My Love, My Life played on screen, tears rolled down my face. The mother/daughter characters (Meryl Streep, Lily James, and Amanda Seyfried) sing reflecting on thresholds, including themes of new beginnings, letting go while holding on, reflecting on the past with an eye on things to come, trusting in things/loved ones unseen. If you haven’t heard the song, I highly recommend this version in particular! I added this song to Taylor’s, “Going to College Mixtape” playlist. (A mixtape will always be a mixtape, by the way, whether it’s on CD, digital, or not. I was blessed to grow up with the 80’s music/culture influence, and my kids know it. Just raising them right…)

I have recognized as Taylor is no longer a fledgling, how much of my identity as “Mom” was truly prominent. Even as we are told, and trust, at the dedication of our babies that yes, our children belong to God, and that they are ours for a season, nothing prepares one fully for this moment. Even as Jesus reminds us to trust in the steadfast enveloping Grace and Love of the Creator when he asks, “Why have you been searching for me?” I had devoured every article I could find about sending off your child to college as a way to prepare myself, and Taylor. I knew I needed to embrace this transition, and to let Taylor know that she was ready, and how excited I was for her. All the while, my insides were screaming, “Nope! Not true!” (Well, partly anyway.) Yes, I was excited for her, and I was grieving, and filled with wonder about her future, and mine. Yes, Taylor was ready and has been ready (she pretty much came out of the womb holding a book, and has taken that curiosity with her from day one)! And yet, she still has so much to learn (and so do I)! Yes, we were both confident, and filled with some trepidation.

Even though I had emphasized how important and exciting this phase in her life would be, I wanted to say, “Never mind. Forget all I ever said about how valuable the experience and education of college is. Don’t go. Stay home. We’ll just keep watching Gilmore Girls, while eating popcorn and ice cream.” But, alas, we saw her off, adorned in T-shirts and hats with her college logo, embracing the paradox of heartache and joy. Yes, I was feeling like my breath had been ripped out of me, and I was taking in deep breaths of courage, a new courage, earned through 18 years of bearing, comforting, listening, laughing, supporting, advocating, allying, encouraging, balancing, and recognizing how much I had learned from her. Yes, she would continue to write her unique and Sacred Story, and oh, what an addition it was, is, and will be, to the Library of Life. And, in all of that, I will still be her mama.

I will still be her mama. I will always be her mama.

It was a special moment. I have pondered many a time (and written about it before as well), the aspect of being in total fullness of both capability and becoming, all in one moment…every moment, really. And here in this moment, I am reminded of that precious both/and again in this very phase of parenting. How remarkable, that every phase of parenting and childhood, ours and theirs (or any phase in one’s life), is a fullness in and of itself right in the moment. Yes, fully capable, and yet, fully becoming. Imagine if we paused to breathe in that reality more often. I am enough, and I am becoming. This phase is what it fully is, and will become even more. This is my daughter, and this is me. This is all of us, whatever phase we’re in. Enough, True, and Becoming.

A quote to meditate/pray with: “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” -Havelock Ellis

Spoiler Alert! Link to Mama Mia’s version of My Love, My Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk254EyXLYA

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Note: It has now been half the school year with Taylor off to college. She’s only 45 minutes away, but the distance is meaningless. She’s still not in her room making it her goal to cover as much of the floor as possible with anything and everything. Her room, her space that was hers from the day we moved in when she was four, the room where we now try to keep the door closed to avoid heating a room unused. (Unless the dog wants in. Daisy misses her, too.) She’s still not coming to the table for dinner, I quickly realize as I do an about face with the placemat in hand I was about to set for her. She’s still not bursting out with laughter causing me to smile, even when we were in separate rooms. She’s still not interjecting her fresh, learned, and well grounded wisdom about the topics holding attention in our current events, sprinkled with puns, wit, and humor. I only get to be wowed from a distance now by her artistry, her crafty use of words, her stunning sense of style, her growing knowledge, her beautifully strong sensitivity, her tender compassion, her fiery heart for justice…I only get to comfort her from afar now when her anxiety grips her, as she navigates relationships, buys groceries, makes appointments, and pins on the “badge” of every adult’s vexation: filling out forms…But it does feel a little more manageable, accepting her college life away from home. My heart still aches when I take her back from a holiday break, but at least now I don’t full out weep all the way home. Yet within the heartache, and maybe a few tears still, I’m grateful and proud. Both/And. Thanks be to God.