last night

Last night, my husband and I tucked into bed.  You’d think, finally some time alone, that we’d fling ourselves at each other and make mad passionate love.  But the thing I found I was craving was conversation.  The safety of saying what was weighing on the heart, having it be heard, the good things as well and the niggling smallnesses that are present inside of everybody.  The blessings as well as the losses.

Obviously the recent change in our family structure came up.  But oddly enough, it didn’t dominate the conversation.  A touching on and acknowledgement was all that was required.  The thing that was really causing this sense on loss and (loneliness isn’t the right word, but it’s sort of partially that) is the absence of my boy, Will. 

I miss my other children, Emily and David, enormously.  The thing is Emily went away to University 5 years ago and David moved out 3.  I’ve gotten myself to the place were I understand that.  It is as it should be, I suppose, the children grow up, move on, out.  Sometimes, I have to say, I think the Italian way of things, staying with the family until one is married, would have it’s upside.  No one would think it was odd, because everybody else would be in the same situation.

But…(I was going to say ‘little Will” but he isn’t little anymore.  He’s 6’3” or 6’4.“  You might think it odd that I don’t know my own son’s exact height but he refused to let me measure him after he hit 6’3” because he didn’t want to grow any taller.  I know he has, because I had to let his school pants out another inch, but I can’t give an exact height.)  Anyway, the sense of loss last night was because I’m missing my boy, Will. 

“How can that be?“ one might ask.  “Has he moved out?“  “Is he in England visiting his dad?“  The answer is no to both of these.  Although the phone call from his dad perhaps triggered it.  Confirming plane reservations to England for the holiday season.  And it’s important and wonderful that his dad has stayed so present in not only Will’s life, but the other children as well.  But ah, how I miss them when they aren’t home for the holiday season.  (Well, in my home, because he will be in his dad and L____’s home.  Tumbling with young children, which is for the summer and alternating Spring and Winter break, his home as well.

“It’s only November, Christmas break is a whole month and couple days away, how can you be missing him now?“  See the thing is, Will wants to be an actor.  Right now, he’s not only rehearsing for the school play, but on alternate days, he’s rehearsing for the school musical as well.  So most nights he doesn’t call to be picked up from school until 7pm.  And they ordered dinner in, so we haven’t even have our family dinner together for the last little while.  And at breakfast, he’s pretty sleepy, hence not too talkative.  And he’s growing up so fast and the other two are already grown and now here he is only a year and a half left before he ventures out into the big outside world, to study at some drama school or another (by the way…he is very talented.)  And he will be gone. 

It’s different once your children leave home.  You miss their faces, the sound of their breathing filling the house with life.  You miss making their favorite foods and the conversation.  The music.  I miss the music Emily would play, swirling around the kitchen.  And David with that basketball perpetually tucked under his arm.  You miss being involved in the day to day nuances and shifts of their lives.  But the thing is, with Will being 17, you know that distancing that always happens with teenagers, it’s normal, but my goodness is it hard.  Because I want to grab up and savor every last drop, I know what happens, I know this section of our lives isn’t forever, I know we only have a finite amount of time left as a family, living in this context.  And so that’s what I talked about, lying in my husband’s arms, last night.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, November 08, 2007 in Chewing the Fat