Goodbye, Little Goats

As children, we learn what love is (and what it isn't) from adults.  For most of us, it was our parents who modeled what love looks like in the way they cared for us and for each other.

This explains a lot.

Yet I believe we all come out of the womb with certain emotional hardwiring that sets the stage for how we will experience and demonstrate love, anger, fear, etc.  You know, the age old "nature vs. nurture" debate.

My own mother loved me with an unfair dependence - I grew up feeling responsible for her happiness or lack thereof.  As an adult, I came to understand that her own emotional hardwiring was distorted from the get-go, plus two concussive injuries in her childhood and a series of life's gut punches made her cling to her children like life preservers in a hurricane.

(I used to wonder if Dad left because she was crazy or she went crazy because he left.  Now I think it was both.  But I digress).

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Our firstborn, has been out of the house for a couple of years now, and his departure was not of his own volition.  I love him fiercely;  his own brain chemistry set the stage for some film-worthy family drama that shattered all of our hearts.  I used to get angry just thinking about the things he put us through, but it turns out that the anger was actually grief in a Halloween mask. It is a grief for the things that were lost in our relationship over the years.

Here's the confusingly wonderful thing about grief - you don't grieve people or things that don't matter to you.  The experience of grief is the most painful aspect of love, yet love is the best thing about living.  If you care about anything or anybody, then grief is inevitable.

Since we are generally averse to pain, physical or otherwise, one could conclude that this could all be avoided if we stop giving and receiving love.  Maybe we could freeze our hearts so that we're still reasonably nice people but we just don't really love anyone or anything anymore because the pain of it is too damn expensive.

I couldn't do it even if I wanted to - love is inherent to my nature, and I guess the only way I could stop showing and experiencing love would be to stop breathing.  Yet my sensation of love is definitely naive;  even here in my middle age, I am still sometimes slow and wounded to recognize when it's not reciprocal or at least not to the same degree.  I suspect I'm not alone here.

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I worry that I love my children too much.

My mother was crushed and furious when I left home and even now I have my own residual guilt and anger about that.  When my own children were just toddlers, I resolved that when it came time for them to leave the nest one day, I would be a supportive, loving encourager holding the door open for them to go.

Last Friday I took our daughter to college to start her freshman year.

I'd been emotionally prepping for this day for months;  not only is she a funny and charming little person, but she's also my best friend.  My grief began building the day we ordered her high school graduation announcements, but I steeled myself against any hand-wringing or overt displays of sadness.

We both talked about how much we would miss each other but we expressed sincere enthusiasm for this next chapter in her story.  In the last few weeks before the big move, we were intentional about spending quality time together and making great memories.

We live out in the country between Lincoln and Omaha, and a trip "into town" means passing by horses, cattle, donkeys, and goats.  Grace has never liked goats;  one took a little nip at her finger in a petting zoo when she was a toddler, plus she thinks they have cold crazy eyes and are emissaries from hell.  Sometimes when we'd pass by them, Grace would remark that they looked evil and remind me once again that she didn't like goats.

But the day before she moved, as we were returning from some last-minute shopping I heard her whisper "goodbye, little goats" as we passed them.  And I choked on a sob.

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The move-in itself was uneventful, emotionally speaking.  Her dorm room is on the third floor of a building with no elevators, so I was mostly focused on not embarrassing her by having a heart attack while hauling boxes up the stairs in the August heat.  I was sweating so profusely nobody would have seen any tears anyway, but it still wasn't entirely real yet.  Not yet.

The school had organized a luncheon in the cafeteria for families to join their freshmen for one more meal after the move-in and before saying goodbye.  Grace and I sat by ourselves, occasionally glancing at each other across the table.  I felt the train in my heart accelerate to a hundred miles an hour, whistle blasting a warning that I was in grave danger of being destroyed.

Tears pooled in my eyes and my nose reddened - I couldn't hold it back another second.  Of course she began weeping too and I remembered the other times that I'd left her in tears in places she didn't want to be;  kindergarten, first grade, third grade, freshman year in Iowa, sophomore year in Nebraska... in each instance, she'd pleaded with me not to leave her.  Yet each new experience helped her to grow and mature;   I know that college will further shape her into a confident, educated and capable young woman.

There was no choice but to leave her once more.  It was - it is - the right thing to do for her, regardless of how hard it is for me.

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We said our goodbyes, and I headed to the truck.  I watched other parents getting into their cars after saying their own goodbyes to their kids.  They all seemed so calm, to me anyway... perhaps there were a few random tears here and there, but for the most part they appeared cool and collected.  Time for Junior to start his college life!

I, on the other hand, sat rigidly gripping my steering wheel and trying not to scream or vomit.  Didn't they know?  Had they not yet realized that we were leaving our children, our BABIES, with strangers in a strange town?

My grief threatened to drown me right there in the parking lot.  

Leaving her behind;  leaving with an empty passenger seat and nobody but me to squeal in delight at all the newborn calves I would pass on the trip back home.

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Driving through the rural countryside, I sobbed like a madwoman.  Long and hysterical sobs, the kind that make you feel dizzy and at risk of hyperventilation.  The last time I'd cried that hard, I'd been resting my cheek on my dead father's chest before they took him away for cremation.

The voice of reason chided me for overreacting... "Good lord woman, she's just going off to college, for Pete's sake.  She's an hour from home, not in another time zone a thousand miles away.  Get your shit together already".

And then the still, small voice in my heart whispered, "You are a good momma, one that loves her enough to let her go - to learn who she is and how to live her own life. It's natural to grieve her physical presence... her hugs, the way she snuggled up on the couch for a nap with the dogs, the daily ritual of 'I love you more'... of course it is sad to see her go, but today you have done a good thing".
   
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And it IS a good thing!  She's called a few times to tell us about her classes and the new friends she's making.  She has been hanging out in the dorm lounge with other freshman who are away from home for the first time in their lives - she's even been comforting other girls who are trying to navigate being homesick.  I know she is homesick as well - she said so last night - but the tears of her new friends have helped her realize that she's stronger than she believed.

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I passed the goats on Friday and smiled.  Hello, little goats.