The sun sinks into the mountains behind us as we drive away.Goodbyes are said. The van heads home a whole lot lighter. One seat is empty
where just a few hours ago it was full. Clearly, we are well entrenched in this
new season of life—the season of goodbyes. We first sent a child to college six
years ago. He returned home a graduate and then lived with us a couple of years
while he worked to save money. We said goodbye unexpectedly three years ago
when a child left at fifteen to take up residency in Florida with the U.S.
National Team. We had four days to prepare for that leavetaking. He, too,
returned.
For awhile, all nine children lived under one roof.
Late last December, the eldest left home again. Hard-earned
money invested in a home of his own, he took a wife and left our home to create
a family of his own. Two weeks later, his brother left for college. Yesterday,
another brother followed. “The big boys,” as they’ve been called collectively
since the youngest was two, have all gone. It’s eerily quiet in my house this
morning, though six children remain.
I think it a happy liturgical blessing that the Church
prepares for the feasts of St. Monica and St. Augustine in the last weeks of
summer. Just as we send our children out into the world—whether to kindergarten
or college—we have the reassurance that comes with praying novenas for the
intercession of a mother-son pair whose faith is breathtaking.
St. Monica is the mother of St. Augustine. Her story is so
worth the time of every mother. The brief version is that Monica was the wife
of a pagan, who had a violent temper and a problem with alcohol. His mother was
a difficult, irritable woman, who lived with the couple. Monica bore them
patiently and with kindness. She prayed for their conversions and ultimately,
they both died Christians.
Monica was also the mother of least three children who
survived infancy. Augustine, her eldest, was a bit of a handful. He was a wild
child who sorely tested her limits with immoral living and heretical
philosophies. Monica stayed close to him and prayed mightily for his
conversion. In the end, St. Augustine, under the direction of St. Ambrose, was
baptized and grew into his vocation as one the greatest saints ever and a
Doctor of the Church.
As I’ve witnessed the grief of mothers as they send their
children off to school, I’ve noticed several things. The first is that every
woman comes to this time a little differently. For some women, the grief is
wide and deep and raw. I’ve seen that this is not the case for everyone.
Unfortunately, a woman who aches cannot assume she will be supported and
consoled. There is the real possibility that someone will scoff. This is
unfortunate, because mothers do need community. The experience of launching a
child into the world is not unlike the experience of childbirth. Birthing
became a much happier, more humane experience when women began to share
collective experiences and to advocate for measures that would bring comfort
and support. So, too, we need to empathize with one another in the transition
and the sending forth of our children from homes.
I’ve listened intently to other women this time around. Eyes
wide open and ears alert, I’ve noticed a trend. Mothers worry that they haven’t
done enough. As her daughter leaves for college, you give a mom a hug and
assure her that she’s done a good job and all will be well and she returns your
well-intentioned words of encouragement with wild-eyed panic. She worries. She
worries about all the conversations they never got around to having. She
worries about all the lessons in faith she never taught. She worries about all
the moments of instruction and guidance and reassurance that slipped through
her fingers. Was it enough? Did she do enough? Now that her job is over, will
everything be ok? Sometimes, the grief upon leaving is commensurate with a
mother’s fear that she has somehow failed to adequately prepare her child for
the day of departure.
We are certain—because we know our child so well and we love
her so fiercely—that it is not enough. We are certain that we’ve forgotten
something. There’s more to do, more to say, more to love. And there is.
Here’s a hint, mom. It’s
not over.
We don’t stop mothering when they leave home. God’s not
finished and neither are you. St. Monica prayed for her son for seventeen years
after she kicked him out of her house. She stuck close. He left Tagaste for
Rome and she followed him there. She stay tuned into him, engaged in his life,
and was prayerfully incessant. She wasn’t a nagging mother (or nagging wife,
for that matter). Instead, she was a faith-filled servant of God who never
stopped loving and was relentless in her firm resolve to live the Gospel. She
was a teacher, a role model, and an agent of change in the conversion of people
she loved well past their childhoods.
It’s not over.
It’s not too late. You aren’t finished mothering. Indeed, in
many ways, it’s just begun. One of the saddest stories I’ve ever known is the
story told by a grown woman whose parents were “finished” when they left her at
college. They considered their “jobs” done. It’s not a job. It’s a vocation.
Parenting is for a lifetime. In this age of entitlement, one thing is certain.
If there is anything—anything—to which a grown child is entitled, it is the
ongoing prayers of his parents and the sweet assurance that they will forever
hold him tightly in their hearts. Whatever lies ahead, no matter where he goes
and what he does, no matter the challenges, we will dedicate ourselves with
confidence to the gentle kindness and firmness of conviction that St. Monica
brought to mothering adult children.
