I wanted to share a picture of my daughter Lillian and me during her spontaneous visit to see Bob and me this week.
Lilly lives in Seattle. She stayed in the PacificNorthWest after we moved to Colorado four years ago, as did my bonus son Aidan. It’s the only thing about the move I didn’t like and still don’t.
But learning to be the parent of adult kids is a great new adventure. How to stay emotionally connected when they are busy and so are we; how to be a resource and steady source of love without telling them what to do (oh god that one’s hard); how to handle it when Lilly sees Bob and I as old (but I want to protest, I’m still a kid too!); and how to accept that she loves her life in Seattle and does not want to move near us.
Oh, that last one is hard.
Being a parent of adult kids means — for me — a lot of joy and sadness. Such joy in watching her and Aidan experience the world for the first time, and become their full selves.
And such sadness because off they go. All that experiencing and becoming is supposed to be done without parents in tow.
I’m still mourning my mom’s death, of course, and it means sadness is closer to surface these days. I feel the passage of time so acutely. Especially during my visits with my girl.
I am (mostly) not running from my sadness, my awareness of how brief life is, how fast it is always changing. I keep breathing and looking at her adorable freckles and laughing at her silly voices, and letting myself ache with all of it.
And when she says, “Mom are you crying again?” I just shrug.
Here’s to embracing the ache of love and being alive.
