Twenty One

Twenty one years ago, twenty one short damn years ago I would be on my way to St. Johns Hospital in Springfield Illinois in preterm labor, again.

This night also happened to be the first time I remember thinking, wow! my mom has a lead foot!

I’d had several stays in the hospital for preterm labor, and the time before this they had set the expectation the next time I started active labor they weren’t going to stop it with meds, so off we went to get monitored. However, I was met with a terbutaline shot to the arm yet again. I was able to get some sleep through the night and bright and early in the seven a.m. hour, contractions would start again and I’d refuse the meds of intervention.

I trusted myself in that moment, in that moment I was no one but this baby’s Momma and I knew what to do and I trusted what to do.

I wish that moment of self trust had lasted longer, through the years even. 

I knew how to be his mom, immediately, though I may not have felt the vote of confidence from others as I’d hoped for, I knew and I wish I stuck with that knowing. That external validation isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anyway. 

What I didn’t know, was how to leave him.

What I didn’t know, was how to let him leave me.

What I didn’t know, was life with us apart. 

A few months back I found myself with this book Burn After Writing, it is full of prompts to answer to which I decided in my use I would  flip pages until they stopped and answer there each time. Mistakes were made.

As the page eight prompted, “The hardest thing I’ve ever done…”

As my pen moved across the paper

Leave Andrew.

That moment opened a door and behind that door was a firehose, I uncontrollably sobbed myself through the night and into the next day.

I was in a sea of confusion, tears filled with despair and a breath I couldn’t catch. Because in this moment, I initially thought was about moving to Tennessee, but it was much bigger than that. In this moment, it was every time wrapped up in one and maybe a sign of lost days not processed in entirety.

I remember the first hardest thing I’d ever done, I don’t have a lot of vivid memories but one I do remember is the day I walked out of a hospital after giving birth, without my baby boy. I remember vividly sitting in the back seat of my moms car on the 45 minute drive home, without my baby boy. 

I remember I had to Leave Andrew.

And what I’ve realized is not one time since that day, has gotten any easier. Not one time.

Not when I went out with friends.

Not when I went to work.

Not at his first day of kindergarten.

Not when he moved to college in Nashville Tennessee. 

Not after he totaled his car.

Not when I moved to Tennessee. 

And not every other time I get to spend time with him. 

That is the one thing I didn’t know under the scope of how to be a Momma, was how to Leave Andrew.

I’m sure I cried the hardest the first time we were apart. But that one time at a halfway point, I may have met my match at who cried the hardest when we essentially went our separate ways solidifying Andrew was in fact a responsible young man going on to be an adult on his own. 

When I initially thought my mind was going to that moment standing in a Casey’s parking lot, the moment I knew we were done living together, it was actually a landslide of all those moments. 

How to you rewrite every year how proud you are of someone?

Andrew, you’re turning 21 years old in just a few short hours, and I’m constantly in awe of how exquisite of a human you are.

Overall you are such a kind, calm, elder spirited human and you’re such a joy to spend time with. 

Born at 4 lb 4 oz you showed up with a great perseverance bigger than I ever dreamed. 

Thank you for being the first bright light in my life.

Thank you for helping me to know love even in fear.

Thank you for the gift of your time.

Take good care and travel safe,

Momma