My son and I got into a shouting match a couple of days ago–I mean a good ol’ holler near the top of your voice kind of argument. I was sitting here in my bedroom and he was sitting in his car. He had the presence of mind to pull off the road so as not to endanger his life or the lives of others. For a full three or four minutes that felt like 30, we hollered at one another, cursing and swearing, but interestingly not calling each other names. Almost as soon as the altercation started, it was over and we sat in our respective locations 2800 miles apart and a million miles away from each other and yet still on the line. There was no slamming down of the phone (not that you can slam down a cell phone to disconnect from the call), no abrupt hanging up, just silence, with me sniffling back the tears that were clogging my throat and nothing from him on the other end.
“You there?” I sniffed in my gurgly, tear-choked voice. “I’m here.” He replied, quiet and calm. “I didn’t want to hang up with things like they are.” “Me either.” I answered and exhaled.We eventually talked through and beyond the issue that had caused the blowup, and by the time we’d ended the conversation we were back to chatting like nothing had happened. I apologized to him for losing my temper and for “interfering” in his life, criticizing a decision he had made. Less than a week ago my son had turned 25 years old. In my book that is about old enough for me to stop vocally criticizing his decisions. That doesn’t mean I agree with them–I imagine there are a few I don’t agree with. But I need to learn to keep my criticisms or even my “helpful advice” to myself and let him make his own decisions and work through whatever circumstances or consequences arise from them.
I’m grateful this evening for a couple of important realizations I made in the aftermath of our argument. First, I am grateful for the man my son has become and some awareness that I’ve had something to do with how well he’s turning out. My son would not have gotten off that phone and left things angry and unsettled between us. He did whatever he needed to do to calm down, as did I, and we were able to talk through the anger and get to a good place. There is no doubt in my mind that my son loves me and I pray that he knows how much I love him, and I so appreciate his determination to stay in the conversation so that we could clear the air. I know that some people would have hung up, turned and gone away angry. He did not.
Second, I came to a realization as I calmed down from my yelling at him: I am taking another giant step toward letting go of him. He is no longer a child. He has his own mind, his own way of doing things that are different from mine and deserving of my respect. He is discovering what works for him and while sometimes I feel like I’m peering at him from behind my hands covering my eyes, I have to let go of thinking that my ideas or my ways are better. They are perhaps better for me, but they don’t fit or work for him. He has to find his own way. I have to let him go and let him figure things out on his own.
Truth is, he’s always been this way: always working an angle, trying to do things his way and doing them differently than what I was thought was the best way. I often thought he did them differently especially because they were opposite to the ways I thought they should be done. If I said left, he went right. If I said blue, he said orange, just to be contrary, or so I thought. But here’s where realization number three came: the occasional verbal sparring and even the rare but periodic knockdown drag out shouting matches I had with my son have actually contributed to his growth, his verbal reasoning, his considerable arguing skills (logical and systematic), and the very sense of independence I was fighting with him about this week. There’s an old proverb that says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” That is, it is through the process of this kind of verbal sparring that our wits are sharpened and we are made better for it. I have to think that even my son would agree with this assessment.
So I am grateful for the many lessons I learned during and after my recent shouting match with my son. It was difficult and painful for those first awful minutes of the conversation. But in the immediate aftermath and in the days that have followed I’ve learned so much about my son, myself, and what it means to let go. As a mother this is probably one of those difficult transition times: he’ll always be my son, but he’s no longer my little boy. In 1996 I wrote a song called, “Letting Go.” The last verse says:
I watch my children and I see how fast they grow. Each day brings me closer to the time I’ve gotta let ‘em go. But until then I hug them and I bless them and I love them and I let them know That I’ll hold on tight and won’t let go. Cause people come in our lives and for a while they stay, But they’re not ours to keep,we let ‘em go,we give them away. So we’ve gotta make the best we can of each and every day, Cause all too soon we know we’ll face another time of letting go. (Words and music by M. T. Chamblee, © 1996)At the time I wrote the song, my son was 8 years old and my daughter was 6. Who knew I was a prophet as well as a songwriter? And while part of me wants to protest that a mother’s job is never finished, the truth is that the part of my job of teaching my son important life lessons that he needed to know growing up is over. Now my job is to step back and watch to see if they “took.” And from where I stand, I have to say he’s doing pretty well. Oh I imagine he might still need my advice from time to time, but as best I can I’m going to wait for him to ask for it!
