Why Are You So Sad?
One Sunday morning, I was minding my own business when I heard, quietly on the other side of the room, Dylan’s voice. He was singing one of his own songs, and my stomach flipped for a minute before I remembered:
Dylan’s not here.
Bill had music playing on his computer on the other side of the room while he worked. He was listening to Dylan’s songs, as if having Dylan’s music playing wasn’t something to be treasured while doing nothing else at all except attentive listening.
I turned around with a tear in my eye.
Shane said, “Why are you so sad?”
“Because Dylan’s not here!” I said. His music was here; his videos were here. Heck, his bed is still here. But Dylan is not here.
This is something that hasn’t really bothered me before. I was just talking to someone about how easy it’s been, having him at college.
“I’m just so happy that he’s happy!” I said, and I meant it. I think about Dylan all the time. But I think about the things he’s doing at college, and it makes me happy.
I’m happy that he has close friends and that he’s got plenty to do. I’m happy that he likes his classes, that he’s getting phenomenal grades, that he’s on track for graduation in four years. I think about him turning in his work, sure, but compared to high school – I don’t think about it at all.
I wait to get texts from Dylan, and hope for FaceTime calls and photos. I treasure them the way I treasure watching a song of his on YouTube. Sometimes he just “likes” something that I text to him – a skill that I have yet to acquire – and even that, I treasure.
But when I hear his voice, his gorgeous singing voice, coming from a computer and being relatively ignored, it absolutely breaks my heart. Even though Dylan would be thrilled to have his music be someone’s background music, it makes me sad.
Because to me, Dylan isn’t background. He’s front and center, light of my life, always. He and Shane share a spotlight that no one else will ever be able to share.
It’s sad, in fact, for those people in my life who probably want some of that spotlight. There are people in my life – my husband, for example – who definitely have my heart, but who don’t have the spotlight.
I keep thinking about a comment, when I was pregnant. He and Bill both had children, and I didn’t. I was trying to figure out how I could possibly even like the child I would have – and what if I didn’t? What if I didn’t feel like kissing my own baby?
Our mutual friend, “I’d jump in front of a train for my daughter, and I’d never even think about it.”
Bill said, “You’d jump in front of a train for your wife, too, wouldn’t you?”
And he said, “Sure! But I’d think about it first.”
And that, they agreed, is how parenting works. It’s an instinct, to protect those babies.
But when the baby is grown and gone, and I can’t physically jump in front of the train, quite honestly: I just miss his personality. I miss listening to him sing, and talk, and just be him. I want to see him, to hear him, to be with him.
Even though I know it’s way better for both of us if he’s living entirely independent of me.
Still, when he sings, I will stop. And I will listen. And I will treasure every moment I can.