Confessions of a Daughterless Mother

I dragged his bag behind me. The noise from the wheels rolling through the stray rocks in the parking lot grinding like gentle background music. I dipped my head as I pulled open the high school door, pulling my hat down over my eyes. If I was a good mom I wouldn't be bringing him his baseball bag he forgot. If I was a good mom I would let him learn from the consequences -- missing the second day of baseball try outs. I was both embarrassed and poised to defend my decision should anyone ask. My words spilled out of my mouth faster than I could catch them when I presented the bag and my purpose to the school secretary. Things like, "just this once!" and "teenagers" with a roll of my eyes. My heart pounded faster than it needed to and I turned with a smile--practically running out of the office before I could be chastised for bringing my kid what he forgot. Knowing that I didn't believe a word I just said. It wouldn't be just this once and it's

I remember my first steps into the halls of my high school --- I was hesitant, unsure. I remember scanning the sea of people looking for a friendly face and not finding one. I remember what I wore when I took the ACT (I also remember not knowing--at all--what the ACT actually was). I remember standing outside taking pictures with friends after our high school Swing Out assembly. I remember standing outside the door of my first college class, trying to screw up the courage to walk inside. Honestly, I didn't. I went on day two. My first year of college? I also remember skipping class. A lot. I dropped classes and changed majors more often than I took tests and I certainly had no business wasting my parent's money on being completely aimless and avoiding anything difficult. Don't get me wrong, I had three jobs and I usually worked hard at them. Until I got tired, and then I called in sick (which I was - no one should work from 5am until 3am and try to g

I was a good-enough student in high school--I had a 3.0 something. If I knew exactly what it was I would share -- but I really only know it was over a 3.0 because I was a card holding member of the 3.0 Club and was given a free small french fry at Wendy's for lunch! Frankly, I didn't even know that the 3.0 Club correlated to my grades until I asked what the 3.0 Club actually meant. I keenly remember my embarrassment that I didn't know that the 3.0 meant my grade point was over a 3.0--I was too humiliated to then ask what did "grade point" mean, and how I could find out what mine was. Because obviously, I should have known this already. I had to take Trig over my senior year in high school because I got a "D" junior year. If I'm honest, I never did the homework. Like ever. The problem was--I never understood from the first day and I never asked for help. I could never catch up. I looked lazy, I looked like I had no motivation. Really? I was emba

This photo is one of my favorites of E and I ever. We were sitting under a water fall in Jamaica, laughing. I mean absolutely belly laughing ... cold, mountain stream water running down our faces. My kids were right there, watching our joy. They saw it. They felt it. And the truth is, our life as parents in that season wasn't very easy. But this moment? This moment was pure, perfect happiness ... There is no way to understand or prepare for the way your body changes when there's a new life growing inside of you ... the stretch of your skin, the ache in your bones, the fatigue in your eyes and the yuck in your belly.  You can't be ready--no matter how many people warn you--for the complete and profound dependence this little soul has on you. The weight is heavy and there's no way to feel it until it's there, all 7 pounds 10 ounces of warm, sweet, delicious baby. So loved, so wanted, so intense. As soon as we think we have our nuggets figured out they change.  

I may have met you already, perhaps not. You are the one who will whisk him away, create a life with him, a family a home. You are the one that will find his lost wallet, hear his frustrations at the end of the day and his excitement in the morning. You will be the keeper of his heart and the love that he builds his life around. You are what I want for him ... a partner, a best friend, a love, a co-parent.  Since the day I found out my son would come to be I have cringed--both inwardly and outwardly--at the quote "A daughter is a daughter all her life but a son is a son 'till he takes a wife". It hurts, honestly, down to my bones. But here's the thing ... it's partly true. It's true that I won't be his soft place to fall--at least not all the time -- but it's also true that I want that for him. I want him to create his own life, his own family, his own purpose and why in this world. It's also true that I want to be a part of it. 

I'm sick. Like coughing-so-hard-i-might-turn-inside-out sick. I haven't slept in a week and when I have slept it's been interrupted (repeatedly) by hacking fits. Last night I laid in bed sitting straight up for two hours waiting for the cough medicine I took to settle into my lungs and help a girl out. Two hours. Two hours I coughed and coughed. I finally fell asleep only to wake up at 4:37 am. I wasn't coughing -- yet -- but I was wide awake. I tried to will myself to sleep, I closed my eyes, refused to pick up my ipad where my book was tucked away waiting for me to open it back up. I had to pee, but didn't want to risk coughing so laid there with my bladder feeling as full as it did years ago with a nine pound baby laying on it. My side was numb, but moving would mean waking the giant in my lungs so again, I obediently stayed as still as I could, taking shallow breaths as not to disrupt the coughing monster lurking in my chest. The whole scene felt vagu