When I got home from church this morning, my 23-year-old
Wolfie met me in the kitchen. “Did you see your Mother’s Day present?” he
asked, with sort of a dry edge in his tone, though smiling. I followed him to
his room on the other side of the house where I saw boxes being packed, an
upturned mattress and missing drafting table desk in the corner.
“I’m giving you your independence for Mother’s Day,” he
said. (Normally, he offers to go to church with me and ends up going sailing
with my brother.)
This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. In fact a couple
of weeks ago, I left after the early service, not staying for the annual parish
meeting. Nancy told me later that when she asked where I was, Patricia noted
that Wolfie was moving and I had gone home to make sure he moved.
My son’s first month of rent has been paid since May 1
but until today, this Sunday, Mother’s Day, he will have not spent a single
night in the new digs (he’s one of three roommates in a house of young
twenty-something boys).
This
morning when I got to church, I walked into the empty sanctuary, catching
Patricia at the altar. “Good morning, you’re in town,” she said, looking up
from her notes, where she was marking pages, thoughts, for the service. “Has
Wolfie moved?”
At that point, the last I’d heard was that Wolfie and his
sidekick Johann, this Swedish kid he’s known since Kindergarten, planned to
rent a U-haul. “I’m not sure what he will be putting in that U-haul,” I mused
to Patricia. “Unless it’s car parts.”
But as I said, I got home and there it was, my Mother’s
Day present, the last child leaving the nest, albeit with some reluctance.
Sensing he was upset, I suggested we get a cup of coffee and sit on the back
porch and talk. His head immediately fell despondent onto his arms, which were
folded on his skinny long-legged lap in defeat.
My comforting wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and I could
imagine the stubborn toddler 20 years ago who refused to walk into
pre-school, because someone had the audacity to smile and say cheerful “good
morning.” Still, I pointed out what a wonderful growth experience this would
be, freedom, independence. My oldest son, Wolf’s big brother, made a pit stop
after college at home for maybe two weeks—he was all about being the master of
his own domain.
But Wolfie has never particularly had that streak of
adventure to strike out on his own, as many Millinneals do not. In fact, one
time, when my big brother was grumbling about going to an office every day,
Wolfie suggested he just live with his mother. My brother replied, “I don’t
want to live with my mother (strict). I want to live with your
mother (pushover).”
In the parish hall this morning, I was thrilled to hold a
little baby belonging to one of the families staying with us at the church this
week. He was a pudgy little dumpling, seven months old, and he fell asleep in
my arms while his three-year-old brother chased giggling after Conner, who
liked keeping the little boy occupied with running and other games involving
hopping and jumping and climbing but drew a line when it came to reading the
child a storybook.
The baby’s mother was young and pretty--and I
thought--quite brave. I watched her watching the swarm of us, smiling kindly as
we passed her baby around—I passed him off to Lee and I’m not sure who was in
line was after that—at St. Dunstan’s, you can sell tickets to hold a new baby.
And of course this reminds me of the point has been made
so many times—God loves us as a mother loves her child. But it should be
pointed out what that means: God’s love, like a mother’s, is for all
times—something you get even after no-matter-what. And, like a mother’s love,
it’s boundless. Independence has very little to do with the reality.
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