As I got off the CTA train yesterday evening, I felt a twinge in my midsection. I wondered if it was my uterus actually hurting because I was grieving my son’s impending move to college the next morning. They felt a bit like cramps so I decided to call them “labor pains”.
I needed a familiar reference point to process and cope with the pain I was feeling, whether physical, spiritual, emotional—or combined. I needed to push myself to accept that the life that I had brought into the world was about to enter another stage of life’s journey. I also knew I had survived labor pains before so I told myself that I could survive this life transition as well. So with my hands gripping my abdomen and at times throwing up into one of Illinois State University's garbage cans, I’ve spent the last 24 hrs laboring and reflecting on the past 18 years since I’ve become his/a mother.
One of my biggest goals in raising a son has been to make sure that he never intentionally hurts women and that he would grow to advocate for their freedom. I prayed for him to be gentle, justice minded, peace loving, and to have a fighting spirit. I am so proud to say that the 18 year old that began college today, has become a warm, caring, sensitive, fun loving, and informed young man that I hoped he would become.
A few examples flashed through my mind during the 2 hour car ride and like calming waves they washed over me dulling the pain. Sometimes it was remembering the small things like his love for cats or being a caring and highly flexible older brother. Other times it was the big things like remembering him sitting in the back seat of the car explaining the menstrual cycle to his little sister (thank you, World of Inquiry 8th grade science teachers!) or when he asked to stay while I delivered the placenta following his sister's birth. I recall, at age 4, he reminded me to be more patient and gentle with his younger brother who would not go to sleep as instructed. He said calmly but assertively, " He's just a baby, Mom!". Then there was the time he tied a pink bow in his hair during track meets in support of his coach’s wife who was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She mentioned that he would always check on her. I didn’t even know they had a relationship but to learn your teenager found space in his heart to care for another is heartwarming. Or the time he came home from school raving about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus. Then there was the day he began to draw connections between my life and the Black women characters in Alice Walkers' books. He was the one who got me into reading the Suzanne Collins' "Hunger Games" series. Here was a boy who wasn't big on reading was suddenly under his covers for days diving deep into fiction worlds of injustice & resistance with a girl as the shero.
He, like his siblings, have always been supportive of my dreams and interests. They understand me as a working mother and they also get that I value life outside of motherhood. He has always been there coaching me along whether it was roller derby or road races. He was one of my first customers when I began selling vintage clothing. He partied hard with a drag queen at one of my fundraisers for the Chicago Abortion Fund. He wears a button on his visor that says “Value Women” and proudly identifies as a black feminist. Yes, his room stays a mess and he plays video games nonstop.
But he has blossomed into a young man that moves through this world not harming others. This is an essential intervention that I and his father have been committed to in loving our son. His masculinity is his own and is not bound by other people’s limited views of what it means to "be a man". (sidebar: His blackness is also his own and not bound by other peoples’ limited notions of what it means to "be black").
But he has blossomed into a young man that moves through this world not harming others. This is an essential intervention that I and his father have been committed to in loving our son. His masculinity is his own and is not bound by other people’s limited views of what it means to "be a man". (sidebar: His blackness is also his own and not bound by other peoples’ limited notions of what it means to "be black").
All of this floods through my mind as we unpack and get him settled into his dorm. I did not cry because I began to realize he’s ready, not only academically ready for college, but ready to offer the world the positive energy that it needs…the peace loving and kind man that it needs. Just like labor, it felt horrible during but then there was pure relief and elation in the end. I knew he was going to be alright and that he understood what was expected of him as a human.
His presence in my life and our world has helped me to heal. He is joy.
