The Ordinary

In an ideal world, our kids are born healthy, are adorable infants, then they drive us slowly insane for roughly 18 to 22 years (sometimes a little longer), punctuated by moments of intense joy, before moving out into the world to live, love, study, and work as responsible adults. In an ideal world, we rejoice as our children grow into themselves, as they move from one accomplishment to another, sometimes taking a step backwards before moving forward. In an ideal world, our children not only make us proud, but they also take pride in themselves and in the family from which they come. In an ideal world, our children live happily ever after.

I’ve learned many times in my life and in the lives of friends and family that we do not live in an ideal world. In fact, we live in such a world that when the ideal situation does actually occur, we give thanks and we stand back in admiration of the miracle of the ordinary. And I give thanks today even as I watch my son move away. For the ordinary act of moving forward.

Today, my youngest moves across the country on an adventure. I remember the last time one of my children moved far away, and it was this child, my youngest, who told me that the move of his oldest sibling was a good and positive thing, a move that would take him forward, even if away. And he was right. Charlie was my travel mate on that trip back from Pittsburg the first time we left John, and he talked me down. And now, as I tearfully write, my youngest’s voice is still with me, talking me down. As our children move out, they move forward. They fulfill the ideal, accomplish the ordinary. They create their own miracles.

It was certainly this morning that my kids were children: infants in car seats, toddlers in swings, three small warm bodies crammed into our bed at night so that only the two adults were unable to sleep, t-ball, soccer, baseball, football, dance, ceramics, gymnastics, band, video-gaming, dirt biking, chorus, basketball, track, cheerleading, Christmases beginning before Christmas Eve had ended, Easter Egg Hunts, beach vacations, Thanksgivings, and crab feasts, the day-to-day of insignificant dinners and pancakes for breakfast, movie nights, blanket forts and fuse-bead marathons. It happened so fast. And I remember the moment I met each of them and the trust placed in us as parents, and the mistakes we made and the successes we had, the doubts, the arguments, the gaslighting (oh my goodness, number 3 was so good at that!), the tantrums (mine and theirs), the joy, the sorrow, all of it. And certainly it was just this morning.