Goodbye - Hello

I just saw my boyfriend get shot.   My wake-up text from my niece this morning.  The subsequent flurry ... drive-by, random ... she wasn't hurt ... he's unstable, in surgery ... I'm at his house, his Mom's at the hospital.  Twenty minutes later:  He died.  She laid in his bed sobbing, waiting desperately, she said, to awake from her horrible nightmare.  She got off the phone when his mother returned, who -- bless her beyond words -- has wrapped my niece up into her own family's grief and love. I thought the text was from Maddy who'd spent the night with friends after Homecoming.  She'd had a fabulous week.  Toga day, her friends among the Homecoming court.  Last night her Dad made a magnificent feast for a dozen of her friends.  Then to the dance.  Pictures, music, dancing, laughter, a good party afterwards.  I knew she'd be heading out to breakfast before volunteering at the Wooly Worm Festival, we planned to finish some college apps this afternoon, make lentil soup, hang out just the two of us since John and Alden are out of town ...  I wasn't prepared for my niece's text instead, although who would be?  On what day of the fucking week or month, year or lifetime would someone be prepared to receive a text from your 20-year old niece that as she and her boyfriend walked across his front lawn to go out to eat some guys randomly drove by, jumped from the car waving a gun, demanded money, and shot him while she ran screaming terrified back into the house.  The police said they'd robbed someone else down the street, too.  They kept emphasizing that it was "impersonal."   To them, understandably, their effort to reassure that no drugs, gangs, or vendettas were suspected.  But of course, it's awfully damn personal to her, to the young man's mother, to the families, to me. I'm flying to Vegas tomorrow.  I plan to hold her for a really long time.

Doing Our Own Thing

Maddy & I have been doing our own things the last two weeks.  I'd say I'm really enjoying this phase, but, truthfully, I've loved every phase of parenting, each more compelling than the last.  Infant to toddler, diapers to her own wildly mismatched outfits, dress-up to Barbies to school dances ... just a blink ago she required the structures of mid-adolescence -- curfews, "What are you doing and who's going with you?" and house rules intended to sustain adult authority and parental protection.  I even got into being the most annoying mom in the world.  

Now we've landed on less hands-on parenting but more mutual respect, and I'm loving these deeper shores, too.

The new transition means we text each other our whereabouts rather than ask permission (her) or feel guilty when extending a business trip to play (me).  She goes with her friends to out-of-town concerts, tours UNC-Asheville alone with Lou and Laurie, checks into a Winston hotel with three friends ("Mom, we had to shop since the mall was right next door, and the jeans were such a good deal ...") and then next morning they get themselves to an excellent CapEd's SAT Boot Camp.  Even when we fight -- and we are fiery screamers -- we both know when to retreat, laughing civilly through our cell phones when face-to-face embers still smolder.

Last week while I was in California Maddy took the SAT, arranged letters of rec, drafted application essays, and painted the bathroom.  (John keeps our homefires ablaze and our kids blissfully humming when I'm out of town, and I hope he knows I am the most grateful wife on the planet.)  Tonight she made a 3-course dinner merely because she was first to reach the kitchen.  When John and I go to Atlanta next weekend she'll take the dogs for a run and make sure her inevitable party doesn't attract the cops.  

This is a cool phase, even with that party thing.

I do get wistful remembering a passel of cherry-cheeked kids on those luxurious snow days when I was still an ever-present mom.  They'd sled and shriek for hours, speeding furiously all the way down to our distant mailbox if the snow was just right. I'd hand out wool socks and prepare hot-chocolate warmth and bottomless pizza, lugging the big tv into the living room so they could watch a roaring fire alongside Julia Roberts (for the zillionth time).  I loved those days something fierce, even mopping up the puddle of snow gear abandoned by the front door.

But I feel a holy passage as I migrate from life director to awed witness of an unfolding adult.  My daughter is an amazing person, and this phase offers a miraculous glimpse from a brand new perspective.

Best Friends

Debbie & I met at preschool orientation, my first week in town.  She and another friend had schemed to find a new friend and seems I was the pick (Nancy liked my earrings; Debbie didn't like my hair but thought I was brave to wear it.)  Maddy and Laurie hated each other, but we forced them together anyway. I still remember the first play date, my 3-year-old climbing all over Debbie's kitchen counter while we baked cookies.  Debbie took an aggravating zillion years to make the perfect sandwiches, I recall, but I've since relied on her zen.  I used to feed them in the bathtub, which they loved and Debbie found bizarre, but she learned to accept, eventually maybe appreciate my preference for fun first.  

Our only children learned to love someone else so much they changed themselves for the better. 

Maddy's the serious powerhouse, fearless, compelling, fun, blunt, in-charge, doesn't much know or care what anybody thinks.  Laurie's the opposite, funny, sweet, quiet, always sensitive to the needs and feelings of others.  Maddy yells; Laurie's passive-aggressive.  Maddy's always moving, doing, dancing, was handy with an electric drill and paint rollers at far too young an age.  Laurie loves to read, talk, and lounge.  

Left unchecked Maddy woulda been that bossy, manipulative, power-hungry girl we protect our children from.  And Laurie never woulda left the house.  

They loved each other early, but they took much longer to navigate those differences successfully.  Most of the time they played together great.  But eventually Maddy would rev up, get more and more controlling and Laurie would shrink.  When Laurie reached her fill she would refuse to have anything to do with Maddy, who'd get devastated. Round & round they'd go, Debbie and I rescuing less and less as they got older.

In the end Laurie taught Maddy how to add nice, sensitive, and accommodating to her array of stengths.  And Maddy taught Laurie to go out there and be herself with confidence.  We count on Maddy to organize, and Laurie keeps us laughing.

All of which come in handy 15 years later as we sit at that same kitchen counter anticipating their futures.