Waving Back

It happened again. This morning, waving to my son as he turned to walk into school, for a split second I wondered who in the world he was, where he had come from, and would his mother mind that I was signing "I love you" to him out the window?

When exactly did I become mother to such a brilliant force of light in this world--a thinking, cognitive human separate from me, yet from me? Possessing so much existence and future? It scared me a little.

When I became a parent, I was naive, self-centered, thoroughly caught up in how the little life I had produced through several hours of excruciating pain was going to affect my world because up until that time, it was just my world. I inhabited it, along with my husband, and various family and friends scattered along the edges. Like nearly everyone else, I spent years considering what I was going to be when I grew up, where I would go to college, what type of job I would find, who I would marry. Somehow those things were fulfilled as I was barely paying notice and so it seemed a clever thing to start our family next. And shall we just say everything from that point on was pretty much shattered.

Lately, I catch myself thinking: so I'm going to pour myself totally into these young lives, so that they can go out into the world and make a go of it themselves and then the cycle starts all over again with them. They'll spend years thinking about what they'll do with their lives, only to discover that was never the real goal. Maybe that sounds strange. I think it must have an awful lot to do with our American thinking--so centered on our own success and future. I know there's more life ahead for me (God willing). Probably more years than I will know what to do with. I don't feel bitter about this. I'm just realizing how when we're young, we're focused on one track of life. We have children and jump completely from that track to another. I suppose you might jump back later, or perhaps create a completely new track. But today you find yourself, taken aback, waving to an 11-year-old who embodies the very things you embodied just a short time ago. But these things aren't discussed ahead of time.

Can you imagine if they were? Say a high school or college course: "Plans? What Plans: The Birth of A Child 101;" "Budgeting with Children: Stop Crying Over Spilt Milk;" "Overcoming the Lunch Lady Syndrome: Breast Feeding & You;" and "You've Spent Years Thinking It's All About You: Get A Grip Childrearing I & II."

Instead, life gives you children and then daily feeds you with unavoidable (albeit humbling) moments of surprise. I could have avoided these experiences altogether; could have chosen instead to make a go at something, do well, make a mark, forge a new trail, climb a mountain, fulfill every motto of those ridiculous motivational posters, and what would I have to show for it? More frighteningly, what would I have become? I'd still be stuck on that one predictable "what I'm going to be when I grow up" track. Instead, I now understand that there are multiple tracks in life. Some will end sooner than expected. Others will resume later. Some must be followed diligently because lives are at stake here. All the while, those experiences, good or bad, are molding me into the person I was planned to be from the beginning; chipping off the edges that were narrow, self-consumed. Demanding that I love till there's nothing left and then start all over the next day. Abandoning my notion of future.

I think many of our hopes are meant to be unfulfilled. Many more become glaringly ridiculous in the reflection of our children. What then would we have to propel our children forward? I don't mean living vicariously through my child. The dream will look different, but we need some force, some passion to pass on. Think of all the immigrants, for example, who came to this country with nothing, fulfilled their one dream, and then passed the rest to their children. A better life, more opportunities were not for them but for their children. Those aren't concepts we're much acquainted with anymore.

Who but my child can deliver such surprises--shake me to the core, redefine my future, as he glances back over his shoulder, raises a waving hand and reminds me there is still so much mystery in the world. Still so much I might miss if I'm not looking intently, waving back with everything I have.