Tonight my daughter called to tell me she loves me and had been thinking about me.
“Wait, did you have another nightmare that I fell off a cliff and died?” I asked her, jokingly. Occasionally she dreams that something tragic has happened to me and she calls me, in part to reassure herself that I am indeed alive and well. I offered her the assurance that I was, in fact, quite fine and thanked her for checking in with me. The entire conversation lasted less than ten minutes but I appreciated the call. I am grateful and count myself as quite fortunate to have raised two really great human beings.
I figure somewhere along the line I must have done something right. My children, ages 25 and nearly 23, respectively, have grown in maturity and wisdom while at the same time managing to retain the wackiness and personality quirks they’ve each possessed since they were children. Now that they are “grown” and for the most part living on their own, I am gratified that not a week goes by in which I don’t hear from at least one of them, and often both of them, either by phone, text, or Facebook. Sometimes I picture of myself as a doddery old lady in my 90s with my somewhat less doddery children still calling and coming to visit me, maybe bringing the great grands with them. (At this point reading this blog one or both of them are likely rolling on the floor laughing at the idea of children, let alone grandchildren…)
It is a testament to our ability to foster relationships that my children actually want to call me. From time to time I run across people my age who don’t really keep in regular contact with their aging parents and whose children don’t stay in regular contact with them. I am so grateful to have been close to my mother, calling her frequently until the last weeks of her life; and although I wasn’t nearly as close to my father, I still checked in on him every so often to see how he was doing and let him know what was going on with me and mine. Each of my siblings remains in regular contact with their grown children and we each stay in fairly regular contact with one another. It is a gift that I hold even more precious as we all grow older. So when my daughter still calls me after she’s had a nightmare or to ask me a silly question about some mundane aspect of life, or my son calls me from the Verizon store to ask me my opinion about the phone he’s thinking of buying or sets the phone down on a chair while he plays a song on his guitar, I am totally in heaven.
I continue to be amazed at the swift passage of time–how is it I have twenty-something year old children? I remember them in all their goofy childhood splendor, as well as their teenaged angst and rebellions. I recall their puppy-love crushes and subsequent heartbreaks and school concerts and sleepover birthday parties with a dozen little boys or girls wreaking havoc in the basement of our house. I smile remembering the breakfasts in bed on my birthdays and mother’s days–with really greasy eggs and toast with strawberry jam globbed on it. And as they grew up the challenges grew with them, as did their capacities to handle whatever life threw at them. They have weathered some significant storms as they’ve gone along, but they have learned to persevere with grace and gratitude. And for that I too am thankful.
I am glad that my kids still like me enough to take time out of their busy lives to call and chat with me. Sometimes it’s hard for me to be 2700-plus miles away from them both, and I long for the day when we perhaps might live a little closer together. I miss them both fiercely and haven’t seen my son since I rolled out of California last year. Still, I am grateful for the ways we manage to stay in touch and I look forward to connecting in whatever ways we can. I am grateful for having been an active participant in bringing them onto the planet. It’s been a lot of fun watching them grow and develop into two very fine people. I look forward to experiencing their continued unfolding with deep love and gratitude for them both.
My Children, Personalities in Full Display
