CREEK ROAD GANG
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Staying the Tears
Patricia Zita Krischcopyright 1996
Ma, my maternal grandmother, always cried when she said good-bye to us. Even now, I can see her face pressed to the train window, tears coursing down her soft pink cheeks. I felt proud that she loved my sister, Anna Rita, and me so much that she wept upon leaving us. When I became a parent myself, I finally realized that her tears were mostly for my mother, the daughter she saw only every couple of years.
I lived my adult life two thousand and then three thousand miles from my parents' home. Whenever I visited, regardless of how well or poorly the visit had gone, Mother was inordinately crabby the day before my departure. She would try to and sometimes succeed in picking a fight. The effect was I left with relief. I was in my late thirties before I figured out this was Mother's inept expression of sorrow over my leaving.
All of this was on my mind in late August l995 when I pondered how to handle Maria, my only child's, departure for college. Swarthmore College is only nine miles from our home, but she would be living on campus, and we wanted to let her feel “away.” Bob was attending a meeting in Germany, so I alone was to take Maria on this important journey. For years, the simple thought of this day had brought me instant tears. Now, I worried that my tears might drown us both. Maria was excited but tense and apprehensive. I did not want to burden her with my feelings of sorrow and loss.
Her childhood had provided plenty of practice with little good-byes. I cried the night before her first birthday because she'd never be a baby again. I cried the first day of nursery school, of kindergarten, of first grade, of high school. I cried after putting her on planes to go to summer camp and prayed God keep that plane in the air. But always these tears were away from her. I did not want to confuse her with my ambivalence over each important new step in her life. Suddenly, she was leaving the next day for college.
"Is it okay if Joan comes to keep me company while I pack?" Maria asked. Her friend Joan was leaving a few days later for college.
"Fine, fine." I said. Wonderful, wonderful, I thought. This absolved me of what I dreaded most, watching her pack. Joan sat and watched Maria sort her belongings and cart them from her bedroom to the study. From there we would pack them in the car in the morning. I hid in my bedroom repairing a skirt for Maria.
I invited Joan to stay for dinner, but she couldn't. After dinner, Maria returned to transporting her worldly possessions from bedroom to study, and I retreated again to my bedroom. By now, I had taken it into my head that I was going to finish remaking a waistband for the skirt, so she could take it with her the next day. Such was my focus over finishing the skirt that I had little energy left to worry about what was going on across the hall.
A fitting showed the waistband was too big, so we each went back to our tasks. At eleven at night, I called her in to try it on again, and it still wasn't right. I've forgotten what I said, but it was cross.
"It's my last day. Please let's not fight over a stupid waistband!"
I would like, oh how I would like, to report that this brought me to my senses, but it did not. I was being my mother. Fortunately, I cannot remember what I said, but, in a moment, Maria, who rarely cries, burst into tears.
"Why are you crying?" I asked, thereby showing that all the brains in our house were departing the next day for college.
"Mommy,” (she hadn't called me Mommy for years) haven't you noticed? I'm moving out tomorrow, and I don't feel ready," she sobbed.
Moving out. Why did she have to use those words? How was I to keep pretending that she was just going to camp and would be back in a month? I took her in my arms and hugged her until her tears subsided. "What would you like me to do?"
"Could you sit and keep me company?"
I fixed us a pot of tea and sat in the study with her. By one in the morning, she was finished. Which one of us suggested she come-in to sleep with me? I don't remember. One moment I was brushing my teeth, the next I was crying out of control.
Me and my baby, just me and my baby, alone again, suspended in a private world. Eighteen years before Bob had started a clinical residency at age forty. He left for Boston when Maria was seven weeks old, and I followed with her three weeks later.
She had slept in a cradle by our bedside, but after Bob left I took her into bed with me. There she could nurse with our barely waking, her tiny body curled into mine. I could inhale her sweet, milky scent and stroke her velvety skin. How, oh how, had eighteen years sped by!
I waited until my tears subsided before coming into the bedroom where I made a little joke, "I guess I'm a bit teary-eyed, too." She let me wrap an arm around her as we both fell exhausted into sleep.
Maria's good friend, Jenny, who would leave in two days for college, joined us in the morning for the drive to Swarthmore. We managed to stuff all of Maria's things in the car and set off with Jenny wedged in back with her knees to her chin, her feet on top of a clothes rack. After we deposited Maria's paraphernalia in her dorm room, we strolled the campus waiting for Jenny's mother to pick her up. In the afternoon, I went to the program the college had prepared for parents and sat through panels I didn't hear, grateful to administrators who understood parents' need for a transition time.
Finally, it was time to go. A fierce hug and hurried good-bye. As I walked down the hill to my car, I was blinded by the tears I had held onto all day. Unashamed, I let them come.
At Thanksgiving, Jenny said to Maria and me, "I couldn't believe how calm you both were that first day of school."
Stunned, I listened to my daughter say, "Well, my mother was so calm she wouldn't even help me pack."
Oh, my beloved child! How can I tell you if I had spent the day watching you prepare to move out of my daily life, all the tears in the ocean would have flowed through my eyes? A few days later I found words to tell her. Next time I need to let her see some tears.
I lived my adult life two thousand and then three thousand miles from my parents' home. Whenever I visited, regardless of how well or poorly the visit had gone, Mother was inordinately crabby the day before my departure. She would try to and sometimes succeed in picking a fight. The effect was I left with relief. I was in my late thirties before I figured out this was Mother's inept expression of sorrow over my leaving.
All of this was on my mind in late August l995 when I pondered how to handle Maria, my only child's, departure for college. Swarthmore College is only nine miles from our home, but she would be living on campus, and we wanted to let her feel “away.” Bob was attending a meeting in Germany, so I alone was to take Maria on this important journey. For years, the simple thought of this day had brought me instant tears. Now, I worried that my tears might drown us both. Maria was excited but tense and apprehensive. I did not want to burden her with my feelings of sorrow and loss.
Her childhood had provided plenty of practice with little good-byes. I cried the night before her first birthday because she'd never be a baby again. I cried the first day of nursery school, of kindergarten, of first grade, of high school. I cried after putting her on planes to go to summer camp and prayed God keep that plane in the air. But always these tears were away from her. I did not want to confuse her with my ambivalence over each important new step in her life. Suddenly, she was leaving the next day for college.
"Is it okay if Joan comes to keep me company while I pack?" Maria asked. Her friend Joan was leaving a few days later for college.
"Fine, fine." I said. Wonderful, wonderful, I thought. This absolved me of what I dreaded most, watching her pack. Joan sat and watched Maria sort her belongings and cart them from her bedroom to the study. From there we would pack them in the car in the morning. I hid in my bedroom repairing a skirt for Maria.
I invited Joan to stay for dinner, but she couldn't. After dinner, Maria returned to transporting her worldly possessions from bedroom to study, and I retreated again to my bedroom. By now, I had taken it into my head that I was going to finish remaking a waistband for the skirt, so she could take it with her the next day. Such was my focus over finishing the skirt that I had little energy left to worry about what was going on across the hall.
A fitting showed the waistband was too big, so we each went back to our tasks. At eleven at night, I called her in to try it on again, and it still wasn't right. I've forgotten what I said, but it was cross.
"It's my last day. Please let's not fight over a stupid waistband!"
I would like, oh how I would like, to report that this brought me to my senses, but it did not. I was being my mother. Fortunately, I cannot remember what I said, but, in a moment, Maria, who rarely cries, burst into tears.
"Why are you crying?" I asked, thereby showing that all the brains in our house were departing the next day for college.
"Mommy,” (she hadn't called me Mommy for years) haven't you noticed? I'm moving out tomorrow, and I don't feel ready," she sobbed.
Moving out. Why did she have to use those words? How was I to keep pretending that she was just going to camp and would be back in a month? I took her in my arms and hugged her until her tears subsided. "What would you like me to do?"
"Could you sit and keep me company?"
I fixed us a pot of tea and sat in the study with her. By one in the morning, she was finished. Which one of us suggested she come-in to sleep with me? I don't remember. One moment I was brushing my teeth, the next I was crying out of control.
Me and my baby, just me and my baby, alone again, suspended in a private world. Eighteen years before Bob had started a clinical residency at age forty. He left for Boston when Maria was seven weeks old, and I followed with her three weeks later.
She had slept in a cradle by our bedside, but after Bob left I took her into bed with me. There she could nurse with our barely waking, her tiny body curled into mine. I could inhale her sweet, milky scent and stroke her velvety skin. How, oh how, had eighteen years sped by!
I waited until my tears subsided before coming into the bedroom where I made a little joke, "I guess I'm a bit teary-eyed, too." She let me wrap an arm around her as we both fell exhausted into sleep.
Maria's good friend, Jenny, who would leave in two days for college, joined us in the morning for the drive to Swarthmore. We managed to stuff all of Maria's things in the car and set off with Jenny wedged in back with her knees to her chin, her feet on top of a clothes rack. After we deposited Maria's paraphernalia in her dorm room, we strolled the campus waiting for Jenny's mother to pick her up. In the afternoon, I went to the program the college had prepared for parents and sat through panels I didn't hear, grateful to administrators who understood parents' need for a transition time.
Finally, it was time to go. A fierce hug and hurried good-bye. As I walked down the hill to my car, I was blinded by the tears I had held onto all day. Unashamed, I let them come.
At Thanksgiving, Jenny said to Maria and me, "I couldn't believe how calm you both were that first day of school."
Stunned, I listened to my daughter say, "Well, my mother was so calm she wouldn't even help me pack."
Oh, my beloved child! How can I tell you if I had spent the day watching you prepare to move out of my daily life, all the tears in the ocean would have flowed through my eyes? A few days later I found words to tell her. Next time I need to let her see some tears.
* * *
Biographical
Note:
Patricia (Patty) Zita Krisch grew up in Sacramento, California, and
lived for many years in Chicago and for more years in suburban
Philadelphia. She is currently completing a book, A House Alive with
Words,
about a cohort of boys living in a residential A Better Chance program
to prepare for college. In an earlier time in her life she worked as a
demographer studying metropolitan population patterns and taught
college sociology classes. She has been a member of Virginia Newlin’s
autobiographical writing workshop class for thirteen years and wrote a
memoir about her mother, The Solace of Clothes. She also
writes occasional autobiographical pieces of which this is one. For more or Patty's
stories which have appeared in our pages, see our Author Index
Prose A-K.
