Thank you so much for your kind responses to my pathetic demand for sympathy. They did make me feel better, though if you could please round up our offspring, tie them hand and foot and deliver them home, this would be very nice too. Actually, Daughter 2’s flatmate is away so she’s back with us for a week and we’ve been having lots of her company. Which is wonderful but – how perverse am I? – the trouble with seeing them a lot is that it reminds me of how lovely they are and how much I’ll miss them once I’m not seeing them so much again.In the case of Daughter 2, London looms because that's where her actor chap is based.
As for those of the kind commenters whose children are in a completely different country or hundreds of miles away in another state – I just don’t know how you do it. Or, I do. You get up every morning and put one foot in front of the other. What choice is there? In fact we see Daughter 1 for a large chunk of most Sundays, Daughter 2 for a larger chunk – she usually stays Sunday night and often comes down during the week too – and Son every few weeks. So I shouldn’t grumble. But I do, as you may have spotted.
Anyway, let’s look on the bright side, like a lady at the bus stop the other day. “I’m glad,” she said pensively to her friend, “that we cremated her before burying her. It means that when it rains I don’t worry about her getting wet.”
I do actually know what she meant.
Well, to be fair, burying before cremation would have been tricky.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do actually know how you feel about your absent children. I sympathize, even though it may not have sounded like I did. For many of us, raising our children was the high point of our lives. Who can blame us now for sometimes wondering "What's the point?" But you are in the land [or right next door to it]of stiff upper lips and putting a brave face on it....So, courage, Isabelle! Maybe there'll be grandchildren in the not-too-distant future! Of course my grandchildren are just as far away as their parents! Can't win....
ReplyDeletePerhaps the children can get you a webcam and set you up with skype? I try to skype regularly with my parents (whom I cold-heartedly abandoned to pursue sunshine, palm trees and a blonde Pennsylvanian man) and it feels like a much better connection than just the phone. We see each other's cats wandering about on camera, and can show each other home improvements. The first time we Skyped with my sister she held her computer out the window so we could see the Berlin TV Tower. I only wish we could do 3-way video conference on skpe and connect Berlin, San Diego and Edinburgh all at once.
ReplyDeleteonce upon a time, i worked with a woman (named Mary) who said that she didn't ever want her (then 12-year-old) daughter to grow up and leave home ... one of the other women said, "Hon, that's why gawd gives us the teen years - i swear that y'all will be itchin' for her to leave BEFORE the time comes" and it turned out to be true - the daughter turned into a little hellcat and the grandchildren are STILL with Mary...
ReplyDeletebut the difference is that you didn't raise hellcats ... and when you've done an excellent job of mothering wonderful human beings, it is even harder to let them go
fantastic picture of C and S!
ReplyDeleteI have been buried under a contest for the past few weeks, but am back in full force now to add my hugs and consolation to the rest.
ReplyDeleteNever having had kids, I can't relate specifically, but I know what it's like to miss someone, and that's universal.
I hope you find something wonderful and interesting and fulfilling to dive into that will ease your heart. Focus on all the things that you and your kids can share from a distance - books you can both read and then discuss on the phone, things like that. My mom and I live thousands of miles apart, and we still keep up a running conversation bolstered with phone calls, emails, and bits and bobs of things we love as "velcro".
It will all be okay, you'll see!
I do sympathize with you, it's so hard to have them grow up and leave home. We moved from the west coast (California) to the east coast (Georgia) to be closer to our only child, she's in Maryland, about 700 miles north of us, but that's better than 3,000 miles. Miss her every day, God Bless the internet!
ReplyDeleteWe moved to be nearer our daughter, though we don't see that much of her. What matters though, is that she always comes wherever and whenever we really need her and knows that we will do the same whatever the distance. My mother used to say 'bring them up with a light touch and let them go and they'll always come back'
ReplyDelete'...selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go'
(from 'Walking Away' C Day Lewis 1904-1972)
What a cute picture of the kitties -- makes me want to reach right into my monitor and give them both a big hug. And YOU too!
ReplyDeleteHave always wondered about the origins of Jane's quotation:
ReplyDelete'...selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go'
(from 'Walking Away' C Day Lewis 1904-1972)
- which I'd always heard as:
"Love begins with letting go - and letting go begins with walking away.'
Those were the words I muttered to myself as my youngest walked across the playground, the eldest got on a plane to Australia or boy no 2 went to do something dangerous in the Alps.
Didn't help much. We do all talk fairly frequently but would love to touch them more.
Hello Isabelle, I must say it feels good not to be alone with these feelings and that you say aloud exactly what I'm feeling too! I'm definitely glad that we stop pretending to say it's wonderful when the kids are gone, as so many "positive-thinkers" in books and magazines try to tell us. But yet, we'll be fine... :-)
ReplyDeleteBelated hugs, and sympathy! I can't believe I went off & left my Mum.
ReplyDeleteI was close to her though, and did visit every year, with lots of phone calls and letters in between.
I know I am so lucky to have my two Grandchildren so close, though the eldest, at 21 is not so 'close', if you know what I mean.
I treasure each hug and kiss from the soon-to-be 8 year old, as I know he will soon scorn kissing, or hugging, Nanna!
How hard it can be, to let go, of our children.