I've been working a little on our family photo books (after a hiatus of…years) and looking at all our pictures from 2014. Not so long ago, you might think…six years. But those six years have brought SO many changes! Six years ago my Abe, my oldest boy, was just turning twelve. He was a bright-eyed excited little Deacon, into Rubik's Cubes, thrilled to pass the sacrament and go to the temple to do baptisms. Seb was ten, still young enough to play soldier and not mind when his sisters wanted to dress up to match him. Malachi was a tiny boy of eight, barely baptized and living in a world of his imagination, full of birdies and spies and magic tricks. And those girls, those three little girls, still were the three little girls—babies, really. Old enough to make us laugh but not nearly old enough for anyone to take them seriously! They were like a litter of puppies, cute and eager and mostly brainless, always tumbling all over each other.
And then the three little boys—our current litter of puppies—not even born! Not even known! Wholly unimagined and unformed!
We were so happy.
Of course I romanticize it. Certain children have always been difficult (and always will be? eek, I hope not). But they were golden years—oh, so are these; I know that. But maybe I can be forgiven for dwelling—just a bit wistfully—in that time, as I've been reliving and writing about it. The kids loved school, all of them—loved it! We were all learning together, and as their teacher I often had the enthralled attention of all my students at once. Every time I announced a field trip there was general rejoicing, and the older kids were big enough to be truly helpful so that I felt we COULD take field trips—go on adventures—spontaneously pack a picnic lunch and head for the hills. Sam started his new job at BYU that year, so there was uncertainty and apprehension around that, but such excitement, too—and having him home more often, with weekends truly free, was such a gift. "And we lived after the manner of happiness."
I wrote last year that changes were in the wind. I didn't even know, then, what they all were, but I could feel them coming like you can feel Fall in the air beneath the August heat. Children grown and leaving. Our rhythms disrupted and needing time to settle again. I didn't anticipate the pandemic, of course, and in many ways it's been a welcome respite keeping our family all together a little longer, but I've known all along it was only a postponement of what must come.
There are people that adore teenagers. I aspire to be one of them (ha ha). Certainly I love MY teenagers, and the ones I worked with in Young Women—their forthrightness, their humor, their surprising insight and compassion. But for years now I've noticed a certain hollow-eyed look in parents of teenage children; something just beneath the surface that I couldn't quite identify. I could see it in the set of their shoulders, and in the parched, fervent way they answered when I said, "I just love your daughter; she's such a nice girl"—with "Is she? You are kind to say so."
Now I feel that same weariness in myself, and catch glimpses of it staring out of my eyes. An awareness—or a resignation—I'm not sure what to call it, but it comes with realizing how helpless a parent is; how much we must leave in God's hands. As I was telling a friend, I can't be who I was ten years ago—I've seen too much. Not that it's been all bad, far from it, but perhaps it's the Fall from Eden all over again, that archetypal loss that my teacher Leslie Norris said will play out in our lives again and again.
At any rate, the changes are here now—the first wave of them, at least. Abraham has graduated from my homeschool and is at BYU (the strange, semi-online BYU). Sebastian has likewise chosen to graduate from my homeschool and attend public high school. Both changes feel inevitable and right—I wouldn't have it another way. They've both grown so much. They're ready to jump into the world, they're confident and well-prepared, and I'm so proud of them. I'm lucky they're still going to be close by for a little while yet, but I already miss them—or miss what was—as I see that necessary turning of their hearts to places I can no longer take them.
And then there's another change I hadn't anticipated. We're moving, from our house of twelve years. Not far—just over a mile away, though it will be a new ward and a new stake in our church. You will have to indulge me here in what may seem unjustified sentimentality! People move all the time. They move further, more drastically, less fortunately, and with less certainty—and probably still handle it better than I am handling this move! It's happy! And it's right! We are awed and grateful to have received so much heavenly help throughout our decision process! But it just feels like so much to me, sometimes I can hardly bear the weight of it. I get attached to places. I mean, I didn't know that I did—but I never had so long to get attached before! Our family became who we ARE here! And I've loved this house almost like it's a person. One morning I was listing in my head all the holy, sacred moments that have happened here, and by the time I was done, I was in tears—feeling that I could never possibly bear to leave it behind! Every little corner is somehow luminously and pathetically infused with meaning—this space here where Junie used to stand and dance on top of the baby clothes box, this space here where Sebby would stand with baby Malachi and watch the dryer spinning, and this space here where Abey marched and yell/sang "The Twelve Days of Christmas." My closet where I've retreated and cried a billion tears—the playhouse where the kids sleep in the summertime and always forget to turn the light off when they're done—even the bulging coat closet door that I've cursed a thousand times under my breath when it won't close. And my babies! Six babies born within these walls, and angels attending every one. How can anyone else love this place like I have?
I know—I'm layering memories onto places, and the memories won't disappear when the places change. But some of them might! Mightn't they? When I no longer have the visual cues to trigger them?
More and more I feel like I'm reaching out, but—how to describe this? It's as if I'm attached to some enormous robotic arm, like they have on the International Space Station—and my slightest adjustment here creates some drastic sweep of movement there—only I can't know which way my touch will set it swinging—or what the far-off arm is reaching for! I don't know what tiny things I set in motion years ago without meaning to, that are now plunging us forward to this future we didn't know we were choosing. I suppose the potential for far-reaching ramifications was always there, but I didn't use to know it—or realize how quickly time would sweep us forward—and now that I DO know, I feel almost paralyzed with the weight of that knowledge. And yet I can't STOP it happening, for even in my paralysis I set the arm swinging again…
Ha! Well. Those are my somewhat melancholy thoughts in this season of change, made more melancholy by the awareness that this is only the beginning, and all you mothers a step ahead of me are probably thinking "Just you wait." In five years…ten years…who knows? "Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges." And it is nearly Fall, after all, which is always my cue to become nostalgic.
I should end with this: there are a thousand good things about this time, a million moments ahead to look forward to. We're so lucky to be moving to a new house with a little more space and all kinds of new adventures! Most of the time, we're breathless with excitement, counting down the days! I'll write about all those good things in time. We are blessed and happy. Someday, I suppose I'll be looking back wistfully to 2020—What a year that was! I'll say. So strange. So many changes. But so full of goodness!
