She'll Be Driving Six White Horses When She Comes

Diann Brown
Volume 23, No. 4

Within a few months, three of my seven children left home, leaving one sixteen-year-old with a driver's license and a job. Having thought I was in mid-stride as a parent of teenagers, I now faced retirement from thirty years of parenting children with whom I shared daily space. I felt like a baby flailing when unswaddled. 

I didn't have anyone ready to replace them as companions, nor did I believe I could engage in projects on my own. I had told myself that their needs had structured my life, causing me to select activities and prioritize how I spent my time. Now I would be coming home to no one but an enthusiastic dog. What was I going to do in the short time I had to set things up before they were all gone? 

I supposed that I should start with all the activities I had set aside while sacrificing for the children: helping backstage with community theater, joining a choral group, taking art lessons, traveling, writing, doing family history, earning graduate degrees ... 

LHK

Suddenly, going in many new directions at once just to amuse myself, to keep from feeling lonely, or to make quick friendships appeared both stressful and unsatisfying. Nothing seemed as significant and noble as dedicating myself to the education and welfare of seven bright children. I considered that my major contribution was behind me and I was moving into the tail end of my life, looking for something to keep me occupied until I passed on. If I had to choose a profession that provided meaningful service, then I certainly wouldn’t do well with this attitude. 

I wrote to my children asking what kind of grandmother they wanted for their children. That was less embarrassing than "Help! Tell me what to do with my lonesome old self. Give me as vital a purpose as you did when you were little." One son said he wanted a grandmother who was full of her own enthusiasm. Mostly they wrote about someone who kept in touch and cared about the details of the grandchildren's lives. Nothing grabbed me. 

After a family reunion in St. Paul; Minnesota, a daughter and I walked for hours and looked at gardens in the old neighborhoods. She was exploring the idea that she could choose just a few areas to love and pursue during her whole lifetime and could eliminate at the beginning a host of skills she never needed to develop – and still be excited. Her broad categories were music (voice and piano), cooking, gardening, and physical movement. She felt such relief to know that she didn't have to knit, scrapbook, play the guitar, throw pots, write novels or poetry, or paint to be a full person. I pondered the possible themes in my own life, and it struck me that I may be embarking on the second half of my life rather than winding it up. It also dawned on me that I had become rather good at some of the areas she was considering. 

A friend, whom I met through the pedestrian assignment of visiting teaching, is faced simultaneously with a forced job change and both her children leaving for college. She described to me her feelings that since she had spent her life providing for her children, her responsibility now was to discover and provide for herself. She believed that she had gotten lost along the way. As we talked, we wondered how true a story that was. Was everything we did chosen by our loved ones? Were we just implementing others' agendas? Are there no threads of us in the decades of childrearing that we want to weave into the next half century?  There were some choices I'd made that carried with them time-consuming consequences that eliminated other choices I might have wanted. For example, I decided to have seven children, so I had to feed them. However, the bulgur wheat dishes I concocted were not popular requests. Other women were not spending hours making gluten jerky for after school snacks. What had I done that for? Wasn't it for my own curiosity and sense of accomplishment? Rather than canning windfall peaches and making other free food edible as I did when money was scarce, some mothers worked for money and bought their food. I began to realize that just within the realm of feeding us, I had made many choices based on what intrigued me. Choosing what to do with my life was not new after all. I realized that I've always been captivated by the process of turning raw materials into new products in the kitchen and garden. Now I invite the missionaries over as ready eaters when I don't have someone else in mind. I remember that even though I called it work and thought I was burdened by yet another chore, I had savored digging in the dirt, smelling the herbs and tomatoes in the sun, picnicking under the plum tree. I also laughed at the boys who went swimming in a hole they dug near the cucumbers, covering themselves with mud in the process. 

Part of this new phase of life might be to own and enjoy my choices as I make them rather than waiting thirty years to delight in them as memories. Perhaps I don't have to justify my use of time by turning everything into dutiful work. Maybe, after fifty years, I can be my own expert about how to move my body and keep fit. I'm not paying money to go to the gym, where trainers' eyes once glazed as I tried to consult with them. Instead, I'm walking the dog and dancing. 

We've told ourselves that a mother's life was either driving children or being driven by them. I'm thinking instead that we extend invitations to one another and each decides which to accept. 

In teaching special education, I have learned that I must appeal to the students' interests at their own level and then cheer as they begin to work for themselves. But I can never actually make them learn. I have delighted in watching that magical moment when children choose to read out of their own desire. At that point, they persist – find their own ways around obstacles, understand, and become fluent. When it's my idea instead of their own, they stumble around helplessly, often misbehaving and obviously rejecting the task. I can build their confidence, make the invitations more appealing and resistance more unpleasant. But in the end, they truly read only when they have decided to. 

I think this was the same principle working at home. We each exercised our will as surely as my students did. just as I was not determining my sons' and daughters' lives, they were not deciding where to invest my energy. I was. They were just applauding or booing. Seeing my children’s requests as just that – requests –  I can give myself time to RSVP and even consider what resources other than mine might be drawn upon to help them. It always changed what I did, for example, when a child ran out of money. The child's situation is now no longer an automatic mandate for me to solve the problem. I understand that I have a choice when they ask for my time, and I really enjoy it when I accept. 

I also find that I don't have to cajole the children into ratifying my interests. While visiting a married son in Colorado, I relished walks in the small nature preserves nearby although no adults wanted to join me. My three-year-old granddaughter was out the door when I invited her, though, and sat with me at the side of a pond as we watched Canadian geese plop in the water, a mother Mallard, her baby, and a muskrat paddle by.  The grown ups were happy playing Tribond back home. 

The nest doesn't feel so empty anymore. I got a budgie as a classroom pet and find I enjoy its singing when I have it at home. I don't need old movie videos running for background voices as much as I did. After years of resisting, I accepted the encouragement from my children to become computer literate. I relish the "You've Got Mail" jingle when I get home from school. 

Realizing that others are extending invitations rather than making non-negotiable demands, I can befriend and receive more easily without the risk of overload. However, something else is happening that I don't yet understand. Creating in ways that I love and savoring it in the process feels curiously companionable. I'm looking forward to whatever's around the bend.

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