My Nest is Empty
In a traditional Jewish home, the Friday night celebratory Shabbat meal includes this special blessing recited by a parent over each child.
Ours is a traditional Jewish home. For 24 glorious years since the first of my three children – my son Joshua – was born, I’ve had the privilege of placing my hand on their then tiny heads, reciting this profound approbation expressing my deepest hopes for my three greatest joys.
But this month, after years of giving to and receiving from the best job I could ever have prayed for – being their mom – I am suddenly bereft of anyone at home to offer my parental love and care.
In 2011, I drove my son to college. It was one of the most exciting occasions of my life. But when it was time to say goodbye it became one of the most depressing days of my life. It took me more than three months to regain my emotional equilibrium.
It seems like yesterday.
We eagerly shopped at Target and Bed Bath & Beyond for his room supplies; attended orientations; obtained class schedules; visited campus hot spots; and picked up room keys to begin the move-in ritual. That included organizing his belongings, making his bed and reminding him to wash his whites separately from his colors, provoking a polite roll of his eyes. Joshua was actually quite good at giving me my due.
When all that could be done was done, and he was clearly anxious to meet with friends and join pending freshman events, I knew it was time to say goodbye.
Parting words of wisdom seemed in order, but what to say as we stood in the dormitory foyer? Trusting I’d done my job well, I simply chose to give him a big hug, to tell him how proud I was and how much I loved and believed in him — and urged him to please stay in touch. After all, moms just want to know their children are safe. I walked away before he saw the flood of tears that followed.
Now the last of my children, my beautiful twins Ariel and Shoshana, are leaving my side – one for college and one for a gap year abroad. I did the same for my daughters as I’d done for my son. This time, of course, the tearful downpour was twice as big. How much more can a mother be expected to endure?
My nest is empty! Expanding my children’s academic and personal horizons has been the plan since birth, but now I’m an absolute – albeit grateful – wreck.
According to a Psychology Today article, the empty nest syndrome summons feelings of depression, sadness, loss – even grief – for both parents, especially moms. The process of letting go can be devastating.
As a friend of mine, whose third child left a year ago, puts it: “Each time one of my kids leaves home … it’s like having another of my limbs cut off.” Still, some parents cherish the freedom they suddenly inherit. But most of them secretly count the days until their children can come home again for a break, and then grieve all over again when they depart.
Of course, Jewish wisdom reminds that our children are both a loan and a gift from God, and that it’s our job to raise them to leave us so they can seek and complete their own journeys.
Kahlil Gibran’s On Children artfully illustrates the truth about parenting:
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Noble intentions duly noted I haven’t yet acquired the requisite wisdom to give my children over to the world easily. I like having them around. I expect I always will. And I feel as though I’ve lost my mom job, that I’m no longer needed, no longer in charge of my children’s lives, and that’s there is no substitute role in sight.
My kitchen table chairs are empty. I run to the bedrooms to ply my kids with the latest news, but those warm and familiar places are still now, devoid of life.
I miss the blaring music; the interlopers who hung out at our place with my children, and whose lives I also fretted over. I miss baking cookies, watching favorite TV shows and sporting events together; shopping for prom, mani’s and pedi’s and conversations with unpredictable teens who tested my patience. There’s no one to pick up or drop off, no cheering at games. And when I reach for their favorite foods at the grocery store, tears well.
Let’s be honest: we think about our kids even when they’re not with us. We love them in a way they’ll understand only when they have their own. We’re here for them when no one else is. We would beg God to take us instead of our child.
For years, I couldn’t and wouldn’t fall asleep until I heard the engine in the driveway, the key in the door – often in the wee hours of the morning. It’s no wonder I’m a wreck now that they’re not living under my roof.
But lamenting is unhealthy, for me and them. Transitions are an inevitable aspect of life. Showing our kids we can get through it, and that it’s important to do so, is a powerful lesson to convey.
Now, without my children around to lavish my attention on, I can survey the opportunities that for too long have been put on hold. The Priestly Benediction is a paradigm for raising our children, letting them go, and moving on at this propitious time. The loving and nurturing environment we gave our children provides and surrounds them with blessings. We guard and protect them from danger, as best we can, by the barriers we build and the disciplines we impose.
A parent’s smile, when looking at a child, surely must be akin to the Divine shining His face … His countenance upon us.
Perhaps the greatest gift we can offer our children is to simply, selflessly let them go in peace. It tells them we’re committed to loving them as the adults they’re becoming, and as the children we’ll forever remember them to be.