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I started a comment to Sally's beautiful post, This Year at Thanksgiving, I'll Count My Blessings Twice. Well, I couldn't keep my comment short enought to be a comment, so my comment to Sally's post has to be this post...
Thanks so much for sharing this.
When someone says, "You are not alone," I've always thought of that as a rather glib remark. How do they know I'm not alone? Who is with me? Why do I feel so alone then? Of course, the person saying that means well but if I feel alone, then I am indeed alone.
You speak of feeling lonley without Cisco and how sad you feel about his empty room. When you do that I see how you are reaching out to other parents who have teens in placement. You are not alone because you are in touch with and thinking of others that also feel the emptiness of having a teen in placement. They also feel the "empty room."
The way you put it, it is a beautiful thing. Tragic yes. But beautiful also. And I guess at some juncture every parent faces that point where the bird leaves the nest. Tragic? Sure. For one thing it means we are getting on. Getting older.
For another, don't we all miss our little ones? I can be with my adult children and completely enjoy and (I hope) appreciate what unique cool people they have become. But I still miss them as six year-olds? I couldn't make up enough stories to satisfy my six year-olds? Eight? Endless video games and books. Ten was a terrific age. We could talk about things we never talked about before. Twelve was incredible! At 12, I watched my children become adults.
You know what was so terrific then? My kids needed me. They needed me to be with them and love them. Now, sorry, but not so much. Oh sure it's possible that I underestimate how important I still am to them and I hope so, but we all know that it's just not the same.
Alone or not I think it's just fine to miss the days when both of your children went up the hill in the woods looking for that special tree. Someday, Cisco may go up that hill or some hill like that again. He may walk it with his children. You may not be around or you may not be able to get out like that anymore. And of course he will remember the glorious days when he walked it with you and Rocco.
Sad as it is to reflect and miss those days wouldn't it be sadder still if we never had those terrific times? How sad to think that at our age there may be people who remember or miss very little. We are the lucky ones to miss the days of such tender love. We are the lucky ones to miss and remember when things were new and fresh in our little one's minds.
When I saw Cisco Thursday night I told him that I envied him this coming weekend. He of course wanted to know why.
Me: You are going to your first convention at Seven Springs.
Cisco: Sure, but I'll be with Beta House and I'll have a curfew and stuff.
Me: Sure you will, but from now through the rest of your life when you go to any convention you will remember your first convention, when you were back with Beta House. You will remember being young, being excited about the newness of your recovery, being in awe of all the meetings, all the speakers, and in awe of all the dynamic personalities (characters some would say) that you will meet. This is the one that you will measure all future conventions by. This is going to be the convention that you will go to with people that you feel close to. This is the one that will mean so much to you later and you aren't even there yet."
You know, he seemed to get it. But I knew he was too young to really get it. But even if he didn't “get it.” he will get it someday because he will be the one remembering. And that's wonderful that he is making something so significant in his life that he will remember it and miss it.
Even at future conventions he will someday miss the one he is at now. Even if he ends up feeling like it was horrible, which I doubt, he would still someday miss it. You just have to be older like us to appreciate that.
And even though we are older and we feel as though our best memories are behind us, we are if we are lucky making new memories too. Sally, the way you and Rocco reached out to parents at our meeting today is already an awesome memory for me. What a powerful group of people! What an enormous amount of courage, conviction and wisdom at our meeting this morning! So much of that meeting was you and Rocco and what you have done to bring this group of people together.
We are the lucky ones. Even when we ponder the tragically beautiful and miss the early years, we are the lucky ones.
And to think you and Rocco raised that handsome, young, intelligent, and caring human being! He is such the excited healthy 18 year-old and everything in his life is new and fresh. Like when he and his brother went up that hill looking for the perfect tree. You gave him that experience and today he is once again walking up that hill at the Convention and he is looking for something as special as that perfect tree. At least in part it is because you and Rocco taught him the wonderment of the quest. You taught him to look for the perfect tree. And you and Rocco taught him that if he took on the quest with people that he loved, that that alone would insure that what was found would indeed be special.
Of course, you and Rocco also kept him alive and healthy hoping for the miracle. And now I feel like you're so close. But there are other miracles that you didn't hope for that's coming right along with it. Did you ever think that you would be looked up to like you are at PSST? That you would mean so much to other people who look to you both for strength and guidance?
It was so beautiful today when you spoke about Cisco and how you visited him at Beta House and you asked him how he was doing. Instead of the traditional whining you got, "Fine Mom, how are you.?" That made me want to cry because I know how self- centered and narcissistic both adolescence and addiction are.
But there you have it. He is getting better and growing up right before your eyes. And he will leave the nest soon but he will come back and every Holiday from now on out that you have him at home for Christmas, (and maybe his wife and your grand children) you will know more than most how very lucky you have been. And maybe because you don't have him this Christmas it will mean all the more later.
Thanks again for sharing this- it really makes me think. It probably makes a lot of us think.
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