#68: The secrets of cultivating potential.
What my kids have taught me about support, safety, and just showing up.
The Luminist is a reader-supported publication that illuminates the pain, the pleasure, and the paradox on the path to technicolor living. If you are enjoying (or at least learning from!) The Luminist and want to help spread our message, tapping the ♥️ and 🔁 button goes a long way.
Last week, Connor was in a state of manic excitement.
Even the mounds of dirty laundry, the giant give-away pile of clothes from his last-minute closet cleanout, and a different doctor's visit every day couldn’t sap his joy. He was on fire.
“Ma, I can’t believe it is finally here! A dream in the making is about to become a dream in action!” His Tigger-like enthusiasm lit up the room. “I can’t believe I’m finally going to New Zealand!”
The idea to be a temporary Kiwi had lodged in Connor’s brain back in middle school. After Mike died, it had taken him a couple years to reach for it again. Then he’d planned a post-high school trip, but it was kiboshed by the pandemic. Now, almost a decade after the dream’s inception, he’s finally headed down south for five months.
In the few quiet moments I found during this final, frazzled prep week, I shook my head in disbelief at how far we’ve come. Not solely as individuals. As a pair.
Like any parent and child, we wrestled through the push-pull of the teenage years. Figuring out how much to rely on each other and what to expect from each other. Duking it out over friend choices and video game obsessions. Learning to respect each other as individuals rather than hold onto each other whenever it was time to cross the street.
But in this last week of getting him ready — shopping for last minute items, picking up dry cleaning, exchanging currency — none of that old tension got in the way. Because we were not getting him ready. I was just a passenger riding shotgun, providing the occasional “you got this” or “yes, I think that packing strategy is great” as he led the way. He was adulting. I was along for the ride. Observing my child become a young man.
Mid-week, Connor invited me out for pancakes.
We tucked into a booth at the neighborhood IHOP, the same one we visited regularly as a family of four.
“We used to come here a lot with daddy.” I remarked. Connor is infamous for his non-existent memory, so I’m always striving to bring moments with Mike back into his consciousness.
“I actually do remember that!” he beamed.
“So… this is a weird question, but what do you think about the mom I was then versus the mom I am now?” I asked.
“Well, I think you are a lot calmer now,” he responded. “Things that used to get you upset or mad don’t anymore. You are just more chill.”
In the early years, I was not a natural mom. I kept everyone healthy and happy, but was frequently overwhelmed by the combination of my full-time job and single parenting while Mike traveled during the week. I was wound tight — not at ease or confident in my capabilities as a mom — which showed in a shorter fuse.
I wish I could claim I just got better over time, like an athlete training for a race, my reps made me bigger, faster, stronger. Check out those parenting biceps! I’m so awesome!
But that’s revisionist history nonsense.
In the immediate aftermath of Mike’s death, everything became spilled milk.
And I wasn’t doing anyone any favors by having a cow about it. The kids didn’t need me to overreact, micromanage, freak out. They needed me to just be there for them. They needed my presence.
This sounds like a flimsy, airy-fairy skill, like hugging trees or channeling the energy of the universe. But it is the exact opposite of abstract or woowoo. It’s tangible in the most heart pounding, gut twisting, headache inducing excruciating way.
Sitting with a being you love more than life itself while they suffer... but you stay for them. You stay.
Night after night, curled on the side of their mattress in the dark bedtime hour, lit only by the soft glow of the hallway night light, I shared their tears. Then shared a ferocious hug. Then an exhausted pitch into the oblivion of sleep, my hand firmly in theirs. Then we blinked awake to realize it was morning. We’d done the impossible and survived another wave of grief.
We went on like this, stringing day after day together, supporting each other with daddy stories, daddy sayings, what-if-daddy-were-here scenarios. Together, we learned that we could make a new place for our beloved husband and father, even when we’d lost his place by our side.
This grueling rise out of the pits of grief taught me that no matter what I did, I could not protect my children from death or life. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t take their pain away.
I couldn’t wipe their brains of all this grief and replace it with the sparkle of adolescent happiness that had prevailed just weeks before.
My ideas. My norms. My risk aversion.
If I’m honest about it, these ruled my previous understanding of parenting (and life in general). If you do all the ‘right’ things, you’ll lead a happy life. Brush your teeth twice a day. Say “please” and “thank you”. Get good grades to go to a good college to get a good job. Use your napkin, and your inside voice. Well done. The Gods of What Is Fair & Proper will smile upon you.
What a farce.
Life schooled me. I could not ensure happiness for the kids by following this false formula.
But I could bring down the volume on their hardest times.
Post-Mike, my expectations dissolved. I scrapped the roadmap on which I had charted Connor and Kendall’s paths to greatness. Instead, I sat with them, listened to them, and whenever I could, demolished any perceived limits on what they were capable of:
I bit my tongue and my fingernails as Kendall did a three-week service stint in Morocco. I kept my trap shut while Connor scraped and clawed to get a summer job in LA. Unless someone’s safety is seriously jeopardized, I keep my comments to “well, you might consider…” and let them decide.
I never said, “You’ll absolutely get into Tulane!” or “Working at a hotel in Vail will be so great, guests are always so nice to the front desk!’’ I didn’t sugarcoat anything, but I also didn’t expect them to be stoic in the face of pain. I listened to their frustrations and anxieties whenever they needed an outlet. Because sometimes just talking out your fears brings them down to size.
When Kendall had an epic, train-wreck, parting-of-the-ways with her BFF, I didn’t call up the girl’s mom to try to patch it up. I stepped out of a conference room full of clients and coworkers after seeing three missed calls. I listened to her sob, repeating “I know this hurts like hell” whenever she paused to breathe. After a few minutes, she took a shaky inhale and said, “I’m going to go take a walk in Great Falls to feel better.” “My park pass in in the mud room,” I responded.
In other words, I threw out my ideas of what a “good mom” or “good kid” should do. Instead, I gave the kids space to unfold, to explore, to bloom in their own way.
Before too long, I was even giving myself the same permission.
Now, as Connor and I take parallel leaps into the unknown — New Zealand for him, post-corporate life for me — it’s clear that dropping the expectations allowed us to blow through them. If I had continued to sweat the small stuff, none of us would have felt comfortable taking any risks. I wouldn’t be reducing their suffering, I would be pandering to my fear while hamstringing their dreams.
Instead of ball and chain, I choose to be their anchor. When the rest of the world is swirling, when the winds are buffeting my children, they know they can find safe harbor with me. And so they dare to venture. Even as they become adults, they still need that. We all need that.
Connor boarded his plane last Friday.
And after 24 hours in the air, three flights, a leap across the international date line, and a final bus ride to campus, he arrived at the University of Otago on the South Island of New Zealand. We texted all along the way. Silly stories. Credit card rejection worries. “I can’t believe I’m this far away” moments of panic.
All the while, my steadfast message was, “You got this.”
Because indeed he does.
I woke up the next morning to this text:
Hope you’re having a great night’s sleep, ma — it was an amazing day today! Watched the Super Bowl, went indoor rock climbing with my flatmates and some new friends, got pizza and ice cream and some extra groceries!!! Life is good! Missing you very much though and I love you!! You’re the best! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
My face stretched wide with a smile. My muscles unclenched. My heart rate steadied.
He’s safe and sound… And happy.
I helped keep him safe, but he followed his dreams to happy.
I can’t guarantee his future in the way that my fragile heart desperately wants to. But at least I can get out of his way and hold the safety net as he leaps into a life worth living.
To their (and my) full potential,
What a delightful read. Parenting never stops my friend. Went to dinner last night with my adult daughter, husband and our twin granddaughters to celebrate their 23rd birthday. Reached for the check; but my daughter insisted saying let me be the adult. Why not I said. Thanks for writing this beautiful piece of prose.
Wow, exciting to be keeping up with you, your friends and family in your life’s pursuits!! Please keep sending these “postcards” of life’s journey!