Six foot five, and still splits my heart open...

The phone rings, and it startles me; it’s 11:00 pm, after all, and pretty late for someone to be calling. It turns out that it’s my son Ari, calling from DC where it’s actually 2:00 in the morning… calling for a chat!

It still sometimes surprises me that I have a son. I know that may sound strange, but it’s true. There were times, after I birthed him, when I was in the throes of integrating this entirely new being into my life, and with that, an entirely new me that had been born. I can remember walking into a room where he was sleeping, feeling astonished that this miracle had happened in my life. It was as though I had won the lottery, only much better; I had a divine being in my midst, someone whose heart would forevermore be twined around mine.

Still, with Ari no longer underfoot, I sometimes get so into the flow of my day to day life that I forget that for all practical purposes, one of my arms or a significant chunk of my heart exists 3,000 miles away, doing its own thing. Perhaps this is just an adaptive measure my psyche has taken to adjust to his absence. Or maybe it’s part of Nature’s design; as our kids grow up and into their own lives, we naturally shift more into our own.

And then the phone rings, and I’m flooded with a love that catches me off guard. There’s a joy and an ache in my heart and my bones, and a wonder at how this kind of mother love could have been going on for women since forever. How unspoken and gorgeous it is.

He hasn’t been feeling well, wonders if I can send him some Wellness Formula. He’s chatty—unexpectedly, blessedly… We talk about our dog, and his job (working midnight to 4:00 am, even when he’s sick) and about grandma, and the weather, and Egypt, and after a while he’s tired so I tell him I love him and he tells me he loves me, and there it is, that holy moment that splits my heart open yet again… and again…

It has—and continues to be—an adventure in holding on and letting go. The dance steps involved with parenting a young adult are complex and unpredictable; I have definitely not mastered them. Sometimes I don’t call and he emails me with, “Where are you? I tried to call you, like, five times last week!” and sometimes I call too often and he’s busy or tired or gotta run. Sometimes I long to give advice but hold back, and other times I jump in with some insight and he actually receives it.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get this right. But I do know that when I stay out of my head and focus on the love, there are some killer moments.

And I marvel, still and now, after 20 years, in awe of the miracle of my son, and the chance I’ve had to be his momma…in all the ways that has looked until now, and yet to come.