This is a big summer for our nuclear family. In close to a month we will be driving our first born to another small town and leaving him there. Without us. There will be many others there with him, but not us. Not his parents and his brother. We will head back home without him and try to figure out how to adjust to there being just 3 of us until the next transition, hopefully four years later when our household will reduce down once again (presumably) to just James and myself (and whichever furry friends are still left).
That’s some very real and very heavy change coming. It’s tracked by the pit I have in my stomach that grows wider and deeper everyday as we approach “move-in” day. Or as I have come to call it in my head “move away” day. As I sit and write this my youngest son is away at an academic camp for a week. They don’t allow any technology there so we have been unable to speak with him at all since he left. This is driving James and I a little nuts. I understand how good this is for each of us, Adam included, so spare me the lecture. I just really don’t like it. It’s uncomfortable. It’s full of change. It makes me want to retreat even further into the banks of Plum Creek with the Ingalls family and their friends.
We aren’t rich people. In fact, pretty far from it. But as I stated earlier this is a very big summer for us. We have already been to Italy and next month we will see Alaska together as a little family as well. We are taking our first Disney Cruise.
Growing up I always spent a summer week with my grandparents in Springfield, Illinois. It was usually in early August and purposefully lined up with the timing of the state fair. In addition to logging fair time, they took us to the (old) Lincoln museum, a mini golf park and fishing in a little lagoon across the street from their house in Lincoln park. During these trips my grandfather liked to talk about his retirement and how he hoped to travel. He said he always wanted a big retirement party on the top floor of a tower in Springfield. He eventually did get to retire but there was no fancy party and he and my grandmother never did travel. They were children each born with numerous siblings in a depression era where money was tight. As a result they chose to have only one child, my mother. They pinched pennies until they were translucent. They saved twist ties and re-used ziplock bags. They dumped the water from their pasta into the back yard for fear that it might damage their pipes. They never had a push button phone, an answering machine, a microwave or cable t.v. After my grandfather retired from the post office as a rural mail carrier they kept and used only one car. They had plenty of money to travel but my grandmother, quite the recluse in many ways was never comfortable venturing too far away from home. So my grandfather, never one to leave her, remained in Springfield until his last day.
It was the money from the twist ties and their lack of creature comforts that funded our trip to Italy with the boys just last week. The same money that will fund our upcoming Alaska trip. My inheritance. Some may have chosen to use the money for retirement or as a cushion to the kids’ college accounts. I get that and honestly, I am currently considering getting a second job to increase our retirement fund and continue to add to the boys’ college funds. But it was important to me to make those memories with the kids before our family dynamic quickly changes over the next eight years, dwindling away to a new norm that will include James and I still having children, just non-dependent ones. (That’s the plan anyways…..who knows really?) In spirit I took my grandparents with me to Italy and I know they loved it as much as I did. While there, we made lots of amazing memories and laughed hysterically. At one point, I was so tired and got to giggling so badly right out in public that the boys said “Rome broke Mom. She made it through Florida, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Washington DC and Arkansas as family trips but this time she’s just lost it. Mom is broken.” And I was! It was the best thing ever. I can’t wait to see what Alaska holds with the four of us locked up in one cruise ship cabin together for a week! Should be very blog worthy.
So when you next see our Alaska photos online, please don’t think we won the lottery or have gone rogue on a massive spending spree. We are simply using money intended for my grandparents to travel to see a little bit of the world together as a family before things change. I am doing what my grandparents could not do. We are building precious memories. I have a terrible time saying goodbye. I always have. As a child, I used to cry every time we pulled out of my grandparents driveway to go back home. I cry now when I pull out of my parents driveway and I cried at the SSND generalate house as I hugged sister and waved goodbye to Rome. I can’t imagine the tears that will flow in August when we drop Alex off just 3.5 hours away and the reality of not waiting up for him each night sets in. Instead of focusing on the “goodbye” I will have the countless memories to focus on instead.
A few days after we returned from Italy I found something in my office after I returned from lunch. There was a hamburger from McDonalds, some money and a note. It read “here is the money I owe you, some lunch and a thank you. Without you, I would not be able to see the world.” (From Alex) So if you see me scanning groceries at Hy-Vee in the evenings or on weekends or you run into me working at Hobby Lobby please don’t feel badly for me. It’s a choice I made and one that I would make again. I have no regrets. If things indeed must change and we find ourselves inevitably transitioning to a new normal, I have a mind full of banked memories that will see me through the uncertainty of our new life with adult children. My aunt says this is all about giving our children roots and wings. I hope we are doing a good enough job.
