Tag: adult children

Inevitable Grief

The last time I wrote I had a euphoric Monday and I felt joy bubbling through me and I wanted to share that in my post. But as I went to post my blog, I had a superstition-driven thought that if I post about how happy I am, then bad things are going to happen to make me not happy. And while I don’t believe in superstition, I also know that life is hard, things happen. So I wasn’t overly surprised when the very next day I took my elderly dog to the vet and found out that he has advanced stages of cancer. 

And then, when I said goodbye to my two daughters who moved out of state these past two weeks, I discovered that while I am happy for them, excited about their futures, when I hugged them goodbye and watched them walk out the door, my heart did take a blow. 

I look around me, the world is still a beautiful place. Even as I write at this moment I can see the setting sun lighting up the trees, making them glow, showing off all their oranges and reds and leftover tinges of green. And I know that Jesus and his creation is beautiful. I can hear my two little boys playing a game with their twenty-two year old brother, and I am thankful for my older children and their patience and love and care for their younger siblings. I am aware of how over-abundantly I am cared for. A warm, cozy home. A husband who loves me and takes care of his family. A church where I can experience God’s presence and hear his word taught. 

Joy is still present, hovering on the edges of my life, waiting to be noticed. But I realized today that I am holding a lot of tension in my body. 

When I found out about my dog, the vet said we have a maximum of six months left, but could be a lot less. She gave me some pain medicine to give him (which has really helped) and told me what to look for to know if he’s in pain. We don’t want him to suffer and plan to take him back to the vet before he reaches that point. But how do I know when it’s the right time? Right now, he’s happy to see the kids and sleeps most of the day, but he’s a really low-maintenance dog and doesn’t complain so I’m worried that I will miss out on some clue and might inadvertently let him suffer when he doesn’t need to. And I find myself tensing up. Stiffen that backbone. Don’t relax. Be on alert. Must keep the dog from suffering. Must prepare for the grief of the kids who have grown up with this dog and love him dearly. Brace myself. 

My daughters officially packed up and left. I stiffened my backbone. This is a normal part of parenthood, letting go. Must be there for them as they make this transition. Must help the kids deal with their grief as their sisters are no longer easily accessible. Must keep a positive face on it, the girls don’t need to feel any guilt about leaving, I must not show sadness or it might make them feel sad. Brace myself. 

We have an election this week. I stiffen my backbone. Don’t watch the news. Scroll past all the political posts on social media. Don’t engage. Try not to think about the months to come as the potential for drama is high as one side has to concede to the other. Brace myself. 

And I think all this tension has to do with my poor handling of emotions. I have a history of not doing hard emotions. I ignore them. Suppress them. Distract myself from them. Rush over them. And I am at a place in life where I now realize that repressing the hard emotions means also repressing the good emotions. And these hard emotions don’t go away, they just hide and wait, disguising themselves as anger and depression. So, I know that my method of dealing with hard emotions is not right, not healthy. But it’s a really hard habit to break. 

Frankly, I think what I need is a good cry. Release. Take a pause for sadness. When I think of grief I think of the biggest losses I can think of: death of a child, a parent, a spouse. Pain that is so deep we don’t even want to imagine it. But grief is also for the inevitable losses. The ones we know have to happen, there is no surprise or shock, but they are still heavy.  Saying goodbye to your children’s dog who has loved your family faithfully for twelve years. Saying goodbye to your beautiful wonderful daughters who have grown into amazing young women, ready to take on the world. Recognizing how unhealthy our political environment is in our country and just acknowledging how sad that is. 

“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4

So, I go into this next week with an odd prayer. Lord, let me be sad, let me feel. Let me un-stiffen my back bone and instead embrace the pain, trusting that it’s ok to feel these emotions, that truly, this is the only way forward. Knowing that joy still hovers on the edges, waiting for it’s time. 

Trying to Let Go Gracefully

The end of this week my almost eighteen year old is heading off for a ten day mission trip overseas. It will involve canoes and rivers and remote areas. I can’t say that I feel warm and fuzzy about it. 

Years ago when this child was an infant I was at church and during the worship service God gave me a vision. I saw a world globe that was dark and my viewpoint was from Tennessee and I was watching bright shiny stars shoot out from Tennessee and go all over the world. And I knew those stars were my children. And it was a vision I needed at that time. 

My husband and I are both second generation missionary kids and when we got married we felt that call for a decision on us. Are we going to follow in our parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps and find our way to the mission field too? We explored the idea but neither of us felt called. We loved other cultures and travel and living in new exciting places, but did not feel a burden to become ministers of any type. So, when I had a vision of my children going out into the world it felt like confirmation. WE are not going to go out, but we’ll prepare our children and they will go out. 

We have often talked about adventures and travel and missions with our kids. Think outside the box. Do daring things. My oldest moved to Maine: Good for you, be near relatives, pursue your dreams! The next child joined the military: God protect my son in Jesus’ name. The next child moved out and has been feeling her way around a career and talks of being a foster mom when she is older: I’m so proud of you! And then this child comes along. I’m off to serve in the inner city for the next two summers. Ok, be safe. I’m going to Columbia. Ok, your dad will go with you. I’m off to Honduras. Um. Ok, now hold on a minute. Is this safe? How am I going to communicate with you? Can’t you wait till you’re eighteen? And I feel myself balking. I know this is what my daughter has dreamed of, and the trip is as safe as any trip can be. And she’s walking in God’s calling on her life. But this is getting hard. Letting go of my kids so they can go off and live their own lives, going out into the world to be a light wherever they are. This is not easy. 

Having multiple little ones at home for so long, I have often comforted myself…One day they will be eighteen and head out into the world and I will no longer be in charge. There is an end in sight. Yeah. I was really wrong about that. Sure, I no longer cook their meals, do their laundry, drive them places etc, but the amount of stress and worry I have to battle as I watch them from a distance as they strike out on their own, it feels equal to having a bunch of little ones running around the house. Maybe heavier.  

Lord, protect my children, draw them close to you. Let their lives bring glory to you. 

And help me to let go gracefully, and trust that you’ve got them. 

And let them know that I am so proud of them. 

Our Adult Children

This past week I’ve had converstaions with not one, not two, but three different people about Grown Up Children. About how we need a support group for parents in this stage of life. How our adult children need a support group as they recover from our poor parenting. About shifting our approach to our children and learning how to truly let them go to be adults. 

This is a touchy topic for me. I struggle with feeling a lot of guilt, shame, and bewilderment as I try to navigate this stage of life. The bewilderment comes as I realize that all those promises that people gave you… If you just homeschool, if you have daily devotions, if you eat all your meals together as a family, if you just stay connected…If you do A, B, and C, then you will produce a child who enters adulthood gracefully. They will be wise. They will make the best decision every single time. They will have a strong direction for their life and they will pursue it in a straight line, from the moment they graduate high school. They will teach Sunday School and be one of those people that others count as a Great Role Model. All you have to do is A, B, and C… All of these promises are empty. But I think they are empty because they are working off the wrong assumptions. 

I think, as young parents, we start off with unreasonable (wrong) expectations. Maybe, we remember how responsible and mature we were as young adults, and we presume that we are going to make carbon copies of ourselves. Or maybe, we had a rough start in life, and so we parent with the express purpose of making sure our kids don’t turn out like we did. Either way, we tend to forget that these children we are raising are their own person. They have their own strengths and weaknesses. They have their own free will. They have their own lives to chart out. We are called to train and equip our children. Teach them the difference between right and wrong. Teach them about God and all that his Word says about him. Teach them all the skills they need to succeed in our culture. But, what they do with all that information, that’s their choice. And it is not a reflection on us what they choose to do. 

I think we get really hung up on our own self-consequence when it comes to our grown up kids. We tie their behavior to our own self-worth. My grown up kid is doing things I don’t agree with. It must mean I was a horrible parent. My grown up kid is struggling. I have failed. My friends and family don’t agree with the lifestyle my grown up kid has chosen, they must all think I did something wrong. Woe is me. 

And this comes back to letting go of our grown up kids. Our grown up kids are now adults and the decisions they make are on them. Yes, we made parenting mistakes. Every single parent in the world has made and will make parenting mistakes. It is part of the curse of Adam. We are all sinners. We sin against our kids. But every person hits an age where they have to decide what they are going to do about it. They have to make the decision that yes, they have hit adulthood with some handicaps. They have wounds, poor training, perhaps trauma that they now have to work through so that they can get on with their lives. But, they are the only ones who can get on with their lives. Their parents can ask their forgiveness, go to therapy with them, make penance, but in the end, it’s still them who have to do the hard work of overcoming and moving on. 

As parents, it’s hard to accept that. I feel shame and guilt for all the ways I messed up. I’ve thought long and hard about it, and I can give you a pretty concise list of all the things I wish I had done differently. I’ve been trying to make a point to express this to my grown up kids. Own my mistakes. I did this and this and I’m really sorry. Please forgive me. Some of those mistakes will have life-long effects on my kids. But, unfortunately, I am no longer in a position to get them the healing they need to recover from those wounds. They have to pursue that on their own. All I can do is keep loving them, keep being there, and pray like crazy. And be humble enough to accept the fact that God’s grace covers these sins too. 

I have two grown up kids right now. I think they are amazing. I am over-the-top proud of them. They’ve made their own choices and continue to do the hard work of just muddling through, trying to figure things out. Young adulthood is messy. There is no way I would want to go back and live that time of my life again. I am confident that God has his hand on their lives and I am proud to be their mom. 

But, I’d like to add, their progression through adulthood has not looked anything like I thought it would. And that’s not good or bad. It just is. Their story is just beginning, and I’m learning how to step down from Parent-in-Charge to the new role as Chief Cheerleader, Back-up Support, and Prayer Warrior.