Our Honest Holiday Letter
{ This essay was posted with teenage permission. }
Season’s greetings, friends and family!
I’m happy to report that 2022 has been a great year. My husband Joe and I are well, and all five kids are happy and healthy.
Our two oldest sons are in college. They came home for Thanksgiving.
If there’s anything that’s been romanticized through generations of mothers, it’s the return home from college.
I mean, it’s fun at first. Of course it is! You make special dinners and light candles and listen to their jokes, their political satire, their imitations, their voices.
A few days in, the novelty begins to wear a little, uh, thin.
For one thing, they are incredibly loud. The pound down the stairs and slam the cabinets shut and yell to each other across the house.
They steal all the phone chargers when you aren’t looking.
They leave their huge shoes in the hallway. They leave cups in their bedrooms. They leave doors wide open and towels on the floor.
You grit your teeth and wonder why Hallmark movies don’t cover this part of life.
Then before you know it, they’re headed back to the feral kingdom of college, and you watch them walk away—all duffel bag and lifted shoulders—and your heart squeezes with regret.
Time is slipping through my fingers.
Time is standing still.
Our 16-year old made varsity baseball. Throughout spring and fall, he stood on the mound. He threw sliders, curveballs, and change-ups.
At first glance, he’s the kid who has it all. An easy smile, lots of friends, good grades.
Yet last month, his heart broke into pieces the way only a teenage heart can break.
Stay afloat.
Night after night, this is what we told our dark-haired son. When he woke us at dawn, panicked and frantic. When he couldn’t eat, sleep, study, or laugh.
It was as though his battery had run out—this boy of endless jokes and chocolate eyes. I took my gaze off him. And he sank.
He turned to holiday decorations. Alone in the cold, he hung thousands of Christmas lights, hoping to forget a girl. Night after night, he stood atop a latter and looped the strands through trees and over eaves.
This is motherhood. It is discovering on your own what no one talks about openly.
You may remember our second son Jack has autism. He started a college program last July.
Dropping him off was perhaps the hardest moment of my life.
Beneath a lemon sky, I watched as he turned and walked away. I ached for the boy who held my hand in the parking lot, who helped me plan dinner, who settled into bed with six pillows every night.
His is a story of small triumphs.
And yet, at the exact same time, he seems a little stuck—as if autism were an elevator and he never made it further than a few stops past the ground floor.
He still talks about which soda is better, Pepsi or Coke.
We had to adjust his medication to help stop intrusive thoughts.
Once home, he seemed to want to be anywhere but here.
He didn’t want to stay longer than two days. He insisted on taking the bus back. Dropping him off, I felt the familiar ache beneath another lemon yellow sky. It was though he shrugged us off like an old sweater.
I built my life around him.
I built my life around all of them.
And now, they are beginning to fly.
It’s what we wanted. It’s what we hoped for all these years.
Life is hard sometimes.
What if we could have only the good parts, you know like when you take the first bite of pizza but leave the crust, or a pretty snowfall without the blizzard afterward?
What if we could take the sullenness, the despair, the heartbreak, the small irritations like wet towels and dirty cups out of it all?
Like a child sifting sand at the beach, what if we were left with only glittery pink seashells?
We can’t. Which is stupid but it’s true. I resent this more than you can know.
But the truth is, we can’t recognize glitter if we don’t first know the dirty snow.
How else will we remember that when things get dark and cold, we turn to our old sweaters for warmth?
This is motherhood.
It is thousand mistakes measured against small moments of joy.
it is about broken dreams, and the end of childhood, and hope, and forgiveness.
In the middle of the loudness, you see every face you’ve ever known.
Tender infants, mischievous toddlers, awkward middle-schoolers.
Time stands still for exactly one flicker of the candle, and you smile for the loveliness of it all.
And as purple dusk turns inky night sky, you peer out the window. You see a silhouette on a ladder. The air is aglow with the breath and blaze of a thousand lights amongst trees, strung by a dark-haired boy trying to find his way.
And you think to yourself, he is here, they are here, we are here.
He is here, they are here, we are here.
We are afloat. For one more day, we are afloat.
Wishing you a magical holiday, and a new year filled with light, love, and extra phone chargers.
November 28, 2022 @ 11:00 am
You have a gift; painting emotions with words. Sometimes you describe experiences I can’t even identify until my heart vibrates with recognition. That feeling of connection disrupted by the need to leave after such a short time. The apparent indifference until he needs an old sweater. These are images that resonate. Thank you Carrie. Happy holidays you amazing Momma Bear.
December 16, 2022 @ 10:25 am
Your words exactly
December 16, 2022 @ 10:27 am
I can totally relate.
They still need us, but not necessarily when we need them. Be patient.
Merry merry