Pondering things in my heart

I took the FS and FB to SeaTac yesterday afternoon, our last hours together for who knows how long, and though I am aware that I won't see them again for a long time, I was ready for some solitude again. The weather going down was blustery and spitting snow, though the roads weren't slushy, and I managed to be back to catch the 4:30 p.m. ferry home.

But the hours since I dropped them off have been full of ponderings in my heart. I have kept many memories of the time since his birth in 1972 and am now holding them up to the light of 2007, to see how our experiences together have changed and grown.

One thing I'm aware of is that, though I miss the days when it was just him and me against the world (a slight exaggeration, but we had some lean, unhappy times), the "mother and child reunion" (thank you, Paul Simon, for that phrase) is always changing. And that's a good thing.

I understand the impulse that keeps mothers resisting the entrance of another woman into the life of their sons. I understand the irresistible urge that prods mothers into continuing to treat their adult sons as though they had never left childhood. I think I was pretty successful at not succumbing to nagging him about health issues, though I did side with the FB when she expressed a concern.

But it all served to teach me that I no longer have a mother/son relationship with him in the same ways. He will always be my beloved child, but the generative step has been taken. He has moved beyond that relationship, whether I have or not, and it is now my task to move beyond it as well.