For the 22 years of my marriage and a few years thereafter, I carefully traced the history of our little family by designing a special addition to our Christmas tree skirt each year. Each new shape represented something of importance that had happened that year—marriage, the first cars, the first home, kids, divorce, pets—always something that in some way changed our lives.
For the past few years, I haven't actually gotten around to finishing the new ornaments, although I've cut them out and made a few notes about why I chose them.
This year, I haven't even done that, but I'm sure the ornament I'll make (when I get back around to it, and I promise I will) will be a moving van. Not me moving, but each of the kids, and each of the moves has touched me in a special way.
The first move, early in the summer, wasn't even one of my kids but instead Dramatic Daughter's Prince Charming. These two have known each other for a decade or so, and I suspect PC has kept DD in mind for most of that time. Romance actually first flared a little over a year ago, but DD had had a long-distance romance once or twice before and drew a line in the sand: if he was really interested, he had to move to California to be near her job and her lifestyle. As illogical as it was, he cut the ties to a job with possibly a good deal more potential than anything California might offer and made the move. Things have gone swimmingly, and I wonder whether the blue topaz he gave her for Christmas has more meaning than the birthstone it purports to be; I suspect the chances are good. That move could change my daughter's life.
The second move came in August, when Number One son left a job in Austin and wedged his mattress between the sewing machines and computer desk in my office to be near the local community college, where he is hoping to retrain from auto mechanics to radiation technology. His current plan is an associate's degree that will give him a start in the medical field, which is foreign to anything he's tried before. I'm crossing my fingers for him, but I know that whether this works out or not, his life is going to change for the happier.
The third move came today, and I find myself a bit melancholy because of it: I took Soldier Son to his Army recruiting station to be inducted into full-time military service. He and I have talked this over a great deal over the past year, so I knew it was coming, and I'm mostly very happy for him. As we have discussed, much the Army has to offer is very good for him, and his experiences as an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran and a 6-year reservist assure us that much of the Army lifestyle fits well with his personality and his needs. I don't know what has future as a soldier will be, but I think he has made the right choice for himself.
And yet, the lump in my throat just hangs there, gently pressing on my heart. This son is the most of all of them like me in his personality, his thinking, and his sense of humor.
This is the son of silver-sky-blue eyes that I described once as a burst of balloons, bobbing in a dozen different directions. He has always been the one who has reached out for love when he needed it for himself but who has been hesitant and uncomfortable in reaching out to share it with others. He is a gentle spirit with a fierce Christian faith but he sees the irony of Christians who cannot forgive and accept others for who and what they are. He is a pigpen and a loner, but he can swoop in and take charge and make sense of chaos when a situation needs a clear mind and a strong heart. He wants to be successful on his own terms: he doesn't want to be in debt, but he doesn't need to amass wealth.
This son has never lived away from home except for his tour in Iraq, his senior year in college, and a few weeks after his graduation; otherwise, he has been here with me and for me for nearly 28 years, and I already miss him.
But time has come, and we're all moving on.
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