Month: October 2015

“The end of childhood,” the author intoned from the stage, “is pretty universally thought to be start of middle school. Generally, seventh grade.” Tears sprang to my eyes and I slid my gaze sideways, glancing at my seventh grade daughter sitting next to me. We were at an event at our local library, a panel of Middle Grade authors, a Monday night in late September. I looked down at her long legs, taking in her feet, in my Jack Rogers sandals. I peeked at her face. She was staring at the stage, rapt as some of her favorite writers talked.

Grace was three weeks shy of 13 that night, and she and I sat in the audience it felt as though many themes of her life and mine collided in my head and my heart. Here she was, a new middle schooler, the end of her childhood upon us. How is this possible, I thought, able to sense the baby and child she was and the woman she’s rapidly becoming animate, all at once, in the liminal creature sitting next to me?

It was as though I left that library auditorium for a bit. My mind cartwheeled through the years and I thought about letters I wrote to Grace every year on her birthday. I remembered the piece I wrote about the ten things I wanted her to know when she turned ten. Already, that was three years ago, and here she is, on the brink of being a teenager and, apparently, at the formal end of childhood.

I have been keenly conscious of time’s passage my whole life, but having children brought a new sharpness to that awareness.   And in the last months the sense that my time with Grace living with me and nearby is limited has reached a fever pitch. Everything feels heightened, poignant, crucial. I think constantly of the lessons I want to make sure to have imparted to her, knowing that there’s more road behind us than ahead when it comes to years with her living under our roof.

My mind snapped back to the panel on the stage in front of me as the moderator began taking questions. I leaned over towards Grace, clasping her hand in mine and squeezing it. She leaned her head onto my shoulder and we both listened as the authors answered questions from the audience.

I left the event with the authors pensive, even melancholy, which to be honest is the state in which I live much of my life. That night after tucking Grace in, and listening to her prayers, which are so familiar that I can say them along with her, I leaned against her closed bedroom door. Every single time I say “I’ll see you in the morning” to a child in a darkened bedroom I am aware of what an incandescent privilege it is. I went up to my desk after a moment at her door and sat at my desk. I looked through the birthday letters I had written to her, feeling the throb of loss and gratitude that I now recognize as the central rhythm of my life.

I know there are many, many adventures and challenges ahead in the teen years, but 13 does feel like the end of something.

I wrote this last month after a wonderful event at the Cambridge Public Library, and today, now that Grace has crossed the bar (Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar springs into my mind here) into her teens, felt like the right moment to share it.

As a junior bridesmaid at the wedding of a dear and long-time babysitter, September 2015.  You were so grown up, standing up at the altar, I gasped out loud.

Dear Grace,

Well, it’s here.  You’re thirteen.  Today.  This fact is inconceivable and inevitable at the same time.  And extraordinary.

In the last six months you’ve turned into a full-blown young woman in front of our eyes, and I stare at you with outright awe on a regular basis. Sometimes you sense my gaze on you and turn, looking over at me and saying, “what?” as you flick your ponytail off your neck.  I always smile back and shake my head, murmuring “nothing.” My colicky baby, my pigtailed little girl, she’s all gone now, absorbed into this long, lean person who’s almost my height and who wears my shoes (though they’re getting tight) and who runs way faster than I do.  The only time I can still glimpse the baby you were is when I creep in to kiss you goodnight before I go to bed.  Your face in slumber contains shadows of the baby and little girl you were.

You really are a teenager: on a regular basis you cycle between moods with such velocity I can’t keep up. Still, so far, we always come back to the bond we’ve shared for 13 years.  I’ve written often about my fears about these years, and, suddenly, they’re upon us.  In some ways, I’m glad they’re finally here.  As usual, I was daunted by the dark cloud of anticipation and fear, and the arrival of the rain has brought with it a kind of relief.  I studied the mother-daughter bond in these years, and the often-painful separation that marks it, 20 years ago, as a senior in college.  And now I am living through the process I studied so closely.  Then, I identified as the daughter, striking out from her mother, but now, I’m on the opposite side of the table.  I knew this season would be emotional, but it surprises me daily how much.

Here we go.  You’re lately demonstrating a new kind of groundedness. There’s a lot of social drama this year at school, and an undercurrent of both nascent boy-girl tension and friendship uncertainty animates many of your days.  You have been talking about wanting to remove yourself from this drama, and that makes me very happy to see.  We speak often of focusing on school, and family, and running, and of distancing yourself from influences that make you feel bad.  I know I can’t insulate you from the social whitewater that swirls around seventh grade – and furthermore I know I shouldn’t, even if I could – but I’m proud to see you choosing to step away from it as much as you can.  I hope that home continues to be a safe place, a bulwark against the anxieties of school.  A place where we can keep curling up next to each other to read, give compliments at family dinner, watch Survivor, and talk about what happened in your day.

Sports have become a very important part of your life.  You played tennis a lot this summer, and well.  We cheered you to the 12 and under championship at our tennis club.  You’re a new but passionate hockey player.  Cross-country continues to be your primary focus, and these days you run at least five days a week. You demonstrate a commitment and determination to succeed in sports that is as foreign to me as it is inspiring.  You are also a real team player.  At one of your early cross-country meets you finished and then, when I said it was time to go (I had been standing around in the rain for a while!), you told me you wanted to cheer on the rest of the team.  And you did, standing at the finish line cheering every person on by name the very last runner crossed.  Late last week you were voted one of the team’s co-captains, and we could not be prouder.

You love to write and read and are making a real effort not to say that you’re “bad at math.”  You’re not.  Science is probably your favorite subject and you still want to be a vet when you grow up.  You have a job, walking a neighbor’s dog twice a week.  You often bring her by to see me as you head out, and each time I notice the tangible bond that exists between you.  I’m sorry that we don’t have a dog.  I’ll be honest and blame the fact that I work from home and that we don’t have a yard as much as your brother’s terrible dog hair allergy.  I hope that your relationship with Gracie, the well-named chocolate lab three doors down, can assuage some of your grief and frustration that we don’t have our own puppy.

You’re so responsible and organized that sometimes I forget that you are just thirteen.  I never ask you about your homework or remind you what needs to be taken to school on a given day.  You simply have it all under control.  You room is the neatest and least cluttered in the house.  You have beautiful handwriting and you read and type quickly.  I hope that your devotion to order and your deep desire to make others happy leave room, somehow, for some mess.  It’s only in midlife that I’ve learned the magic that can exist in chaos, whether virtual or literal. I was a kid much like you, Grace, with a deep-seated need to please and perform.  I know from many years of devoted map-following that you have to learn this lesson for yourself, though I’m still looking for ways to help guide you to it.  I also know you’re living your life, not mine.  I am standing at the side of your race course, cheering you on.  I know you can’t really see me, because you’re in the woods.  I can’t always see you.  But I’m here, and I’m going to cheer until the end of time.

Last Friday you texted me in the morning: “last school day as a kid!” Tears filled my eyes immediately.  I would like to think you can still be a kid, at least some of the time, and at least here, at home, with me.  But I know we’re heading into a new season, embarking on a new path.  As always, all we have is trust and instinct and love.  But boy, do we have a lot of that.

I love you, GBP, always have, always will.  You’ll always be the girl who made me a mother, my first child, the baby who arrived after 2 straight days of back labor, screaming.  You burst everything open that morning at 11:20 am, October 26, 2002, and it’s never been the same again.  It hasn’t always been easy for me to reckon with that, as I know you know, but my God, I’d never, ever do if differently.  Welcome to your teens.

xox
Mum

previous birthday letters to Grace: twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six