Hi Everyone,
The back seat.
Some say it eventually hits every parent, mums and dads alike, but while some go with the flow, I understand others go kicking and screaming into that dark night, some even scheming to never let go. For me, I think “it” is as natural as leaves turning, holding shade in summer, then eventually one by one, at various times, like embers sizzling out, falling to the ground in all their autumnal brilliance – letting go.
My happy moment, “falling to the ground,” so to speak, came just recently. My son arrived with a friend, a lovely Beatrice (let’s call her that), to collect his car before heading off to an event some miles away. I did all the things that mothers do: marvelling over the handsomeness of my son, his beauty – is he really an adult? – assessing whether the friend was a friend or a Friend, and pushing food on the happy twosome – “Did you eat? Coffee? Hungry? Something to go with you? Oat mylk? Yes, of course.”
They disappear out the door, and I am left with my fifteen-minute high of train station collection, introductions and car keys handed over. I linger for just a few seconds at the front gate with the whole of my son’s babyhood, adolescence and “now”-hood flashing through my mind, thinking his friend utterly beautiful, even if she is not “the one,” when my son pops back to say, “Mum, I need the charger.”
Yes, of course, they will need Maps. I suggest going to my car, and they can take the charger from mine and I will just walk back to the house – a short distance. I hop into the back seat of their car, and it hits me like a ton of bricks or the proverbial epiphany…think Moses on the Mount. The back seat. In the few minutes since they went out the front door, they’ve already prepared for their journey (never mind I’d already filled up the tank and, yes, tucked an air freshener under the front seat). Her seat is angled for sleep, or at least a leisurely long ride. (I remember doing that.) He’s got the phone holder snapped onto the dash – ready to roll, his own music piped in. Coffees in the holders. Sandwiches chucked in the back…with me.
It takes approximately 30 seconds to arrive at my car, just long enough for me to breathe in the loveliness of their own lives, a story of which I am not a part. Wonderful. Moses on the Mount, receiving the word of God, couldn’t have been more chuffed than me with a clear and full understanding of their lives distinct and apart from mine. Does every mother do the independence dance? Does every mother have that moment when they realise that there is no going back, time has marched on and your son or daughter has a life of their own? Cha-cha-cha. I had mine.
I simply jumped out of one car, into the other, disconnected the charger and handed it over. Off they tooled, and I stood resplendent. The back seat! I love it. A minor miracle. A leaf twirling to the ground. A whole different view.
I offer you just that: an August full of toasty days, redolent in sunny climes, but especially one where taking a back seat is as magnificent as a view from the heights.
Love,
Marlene
Photo by Peter Chernaev | iStock