88 Comments

I just turned 60. My mom is nearly 89. I'm not a mom but this piece gave me a peak into what my mom might have gone through when her baby girl, me, left home for a land far-away. 40 years ago. Thank you so much for that insight. ❤️

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

This was a lovely Mother’s Day gift. I agree, my children come before the rest. If asked to chose between them and their father, there would be no hesitation to pick the kids.

I have three sons, all grown and independent. My daughter passed at age five from a brain tumour. My boys love me and they are busy with their own lives.

It is hard but I truly believe that my job was to give them wings along with the courage to fly. The fact that your son flew so far is a testament to the strength you instilled with your love.

Happy Mother’s Day to all! 💞💞💞

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

Thank you for this. My son leaves for college in August. I have all the feelings. I feel this literal attachment I have with him completely separating. Praying it will not be the end but a new beginning. I also hope that I can keep it together when I leave him that day. That I will be excited and happy for him. The years of actual caring for them is so strong. I need to adjust to being excited and confident that he will be OK. I will need to let go and see what arises.

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

When I graduated from college, oh so many years ago, I had a friend and classmate who married and had a child within two years of graduating. At the time I felt she was wasting her life, as she was the top student in our engineering class. Not long after, I was at a new workplace (at the age of 25) and volunteered to babysit a collegaue's new born (which is odd to think about considering my feelings about children at the time). However, I remember sitting in a rocking chair with their infant son in my arms, and I felt an overwhelming sense of love and connection with a baby that WAS. NOT. MY. OWN. Wow. Then years later, my sister and my brother-in-law adopted two infants from China, and discovered how I loved being an auntie. Those girls (now young women) were like my own. So, no, I was never a mom in a conventional sense yet I feel fortunate to have mothered (or parented) my nieces, and the many, many college students I have mentored, and now counseled as a mental health counselor for the past 25 years.

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

Will you be my mommy? I promise never to leave home.

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

After we dropped our son off at UCLA (a mere 64 miles away). I cried all the way home. I asked my husband “why am I sad? This is the best possible outcome. We’re not dropping him off at jail!” But then I realized it all went so fast, and it was so fun I wanted to do all over again.

What I didn’t know was that those car rides with him to and from school over the years were opportunities for us to know each other in a way we hadn’t when he was home. Now he’s a wonderful man, teacher, fiancé and friend. This part is fun, too!

Expand full comment
founding
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

I remember this piece so well, it was as if you were writing for me, as me....One particular unexpected shock well into my older son's adult years was being at the same place with him in public--having encountered each other there--and saying goodbye and watching him walk away. Walk away? I was long accustomed to his walking out the door, but walking away outside the Morgan Library? How was that so wrenching? When the adult child leaves, he takes the baby (that he was, with your own deliciousness and that surprising experience of fully requited love) with him, every time.

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

What a beautiful piece. Your son is a lucky man.

Expand full comment
AnonymousMay 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

Thanks, Val, for this beautiful reminder that letting go with understanding is acceptance of a larger self. And how revealing that rereading this after 20 years is for me so much more poignant. Perhaps time, said to be an illusion by the mystics, can be the alchemy of meaning.

Happy Mother's Day, with love,

K

Expand full comment

Thank you, Val, this just sums it all up, the whole deal! I loved it.

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

Oh, yes. I loved and related to all of this. The holding on, the letting go, the love so big. Thank you for a Mother's Day gift that could only be given by one mother to another. xx

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

I loved this so much, Val. Just what I needed as my son is on the brink of high school graduation and heading to college in a different state in the fall.

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

Thank you for this beautiful piece. Just what I needed as I nurse my toddler.

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

Happy Mother’s Day, dear Val, a grand mother and grandmother supremo! Love you.

Expand full comment
May 14, 2023·edited May 14, 2023Liked by Valerie Monroe

--This is such an inspiring piece! Undoubtedly, today must be an occasion dedicated to celebrate the greatest kind of love. Have a wonderful Mother's Day, Val! xo

Expand full comment

This is so exquisite.. Love this with all my heart and soul..

Expand full comment