Inside a tired white cardboard box in my old bedroom, I find a porcelain pink heart ornament wrapped meticulously for protection. But the heart isn’t the real treasure to me. What grabs me by my own heart is the box itself, which is embossed with the logo of the co-op gift shop Mom and her friends opened after their last child left for college. They called it The Empty Nest.

 

This shop brought them so much fun by giving them license to shop at wholesale prices at gift shows for the merchandise for their booths. Marsh being Marsh, she didn’t make much money because she wasn’t as concerned with what would sell as what she wanted to keep. She would buy one of everything for herself, her mom, and me. How many tchotchkes we had in triplicate was a thing to behold. We teased her mercilessly about it, but I now see her participation in all of this as her unspoken quest for purpose and connection once her built-in source of both – for two full decades – had up and flown the coop.

 

Funny how I now find myself with the very same quest.

 

When my girls left for college, I saw the Facebook posts of those giddy parents who skidded out of the parking lot after helping their last child move into their college dorm. I smiled at their joyriding into this new chapter of their adult lives. My take was slightly different. In fact, some might even liken it to a one-car procession of the funereal variety. I followed my morose drive home with three days on the couch, grieving a part of my identity that was no longer appropriate or healthy to hold on to as a source of daily fulfillment.

 

It had been slightly easier with Tori, our firstborn, because even though her freshman drop-off brought a shocking void, my sense of purpose was still partially intact with Taylor at home. Even still, it took months for me to fathom the reality that someone who was a daily part of my heart and flow could just vanish after all the years of nurturing and caring for her. In my head, of course, I understood that this was the goal of parenting all along and I, myself, left the same void in my parents’ lives as I grew into adulthood and out of their daily functioning and care. But still.

 

Fortunately, Tori’s university was only an hour away and we saw her about once a month – lucky by most parents’ standards – but the dynamic of our family life was forever changed. A life force went missing from the daily energies exchanged between the inhabitants of our home and I hated it.

 

She came home for the summer and it felt mostly back to normal but for the reality that she had tasted full freedom and was, of course, changed for it. Our dynamic was different. I felt less confident asking questions about the who-what-wheres of her life. But overall, it still felt normal enough to distract me from the realities of my changed role in her life.

 

When we helped her move into her apartment at the beginning of her sophomore year, my reaction was more intense than it had been the first go around since I knew exactly what the loss of her exuberance would feel like this time. I walked to our car with my head slumped, tears blurring my vision. Then I made the mistake of looking back for Russ, only to catch him waving back to her as she waved from her apartment window. I embarrassed all of us because I didn’t just release a tear or three, I released the entire Kraken. How did her roommates’ moms banter cheerfully while unpacking boxes while I was on the cusp of hyperventilating?

 

Day by day, though, her absence baby-stepped its way into the new normal… just in time for it to be Taylor’s turn to depart.  

 

Taylor’s university was a seven-hour drive from our home, which I’d like to think is merely a coincidence but, either way, it was a necessary separation. Our two years together without her sister at home were important to our connection. I loved realizing that Tori had two years alone with us in early childhood before Taylor was born and now Taylor had her turn for undivided attention. Without a hint of sibling competitiveness in our home, there was less bickering, less “chiming” to add an air of extra scolding to whomever I was irked with at the time. Instead, we connected over our shared interest in writing and thinking big.

 

When Russ and I got her settled into her dorm room and headed to our hotel nearby with plans to meet her later for dinner, I all but high-fived myself for the acceptance I displayed. The next morning, though, would be a different story. The anticipation of leaving her in this new city far from home brought my emotions out to crow like a suburban rooster on a Saturday morning.

 

We took her to breakfast before our long drive home and, as soon as I ordered my food, I felt the telltale nausea of emotions left suppressed. Just as our server placed the eggs and hash browns in front of us, I began to not just cry but grieve the newly dead. I scurried out to the car and sobbed alone while Russ tried to make things okay for Taylor before we had to say our dreaded goodbyes.

 

As a person who has a strange fascination with determining when behavior is “outside the range of normal,” my own was decidedly not. If other moms had this intense of a reaction to their loss, they sure weren’t fessing up to it. Social media made me feel worse where all the drop-off messaging was about parents being “proud and excited.” In fairness, captioning a dorm photo with “I am devastated for Taylor’s first year at college,” just wouldn’t have had a normal ring to it.

 

Was this why my mom was so rude to the friend I brought home for spring break in college? The woman who was welcoming to everyone we ever brought to her was short and snippy with my friend Sue. It was so out of character that I wondered what in the heck was wrong with her. Was Mom just hurt that I brought home a guest to entertain instead of making precious time for her? Was her despair the same as mine? Did she know deep inside her that the sense of purpose that full-time mothering brought her would never be matched again?

 

Truly, what could ever come close to keeping someone alive and teaching them how to thrive?

 

I was daunted to the point of overwhelm to figure out what the distant second might be for me. My resume was of little help because my work history was spotty and varied—Spanish teacher, columnist, marketing assistant, writer for a recruiting team. Where would I go next? And would it feel like the work mattered beyond the paycheck? My guess was no, and some nine years later, I can say conclusively that I was right.

 

Over these past nine years, my mothering role has been called to action here and there to support heartache and defeat. But I have also discovered some other beautiful things that have taken the place of my longing. I have leaned into my marriage to Russ in a way that is good for us both and, of course, I found deep purpose in walking alongside my mom throughout her Alzheimer’s journey, and with my dad in his loneliness and health issues. I have also found it in writing, in forming community with women of my certain age, with speaking truth not just to the experiences that bring me joy but also those that hurt my heart.

 

As I contemplate all the letting go required of us humans who live long enough to lose people and roles we cherish, I can better understand my mom’s obvious ache when my brother and I were spreading our wings.

 

Me too, Mama. Me too.