Why I don’t let them grow up

As the date of my stepson’s wedding in Texas approached, the travel plans commenced. Brad and I began to map out the journey we would undertake in the fifth-wheel from Missoula to Austin, and our three other adult children handled their own arrangements, since they each live in a different state—Arizona, California, and New York.

“Tell her she should get a rental car,” Brad offered as assistance while overhearing me on the phone with Kate, nearly 26 years of age, in Phoenix. I had just suggested she contact her sister-in-law who would have access to one of the betrothed’s cars to see about a ride from the hotel to the wedding and back again. Not to mention all the occasions surrounding the actual ceremony. Logically, Brad insisted that having her own transportation would be more efficient.

“She can’t rent a car!” I countered just after I’d hung up, leaving Kate to call Ashley to see if she would act as taxi driver over the long weekend. I would dream of mentioning such an impossible task to Kate; she would plunge into panic. Brad was confused.

“Why ever not?” he inquired, dumbfounded.

“Because it would completely freak her out!” I shrieked, remembering her recent traffic violation whereupon she’d turned right from the left-hand lane into a Starbuck’s (in a hurry for coffee) and in the process cut off a driver in the right lane so that he and his wife torpedoed into a lamppost and totaled their vehicle. Thank God no one has been injured. Kate called me from the scene, of course, sobbing and so hysterical that I could hear the wife of the driver consoling her, “It’s only a car, honey; everything will be alright.”

“That’s ridiculous,” scoffed my husband who still insisted that Kate was capable of renting a car from the airport and ferrying herself and her sister (who hasn’t driven a car for over 3 years since living in New York) around Austin, a city they have never seen, let alone negotiated.

As my mind churned with possibilities, I emailed Ashley to ask her in a pleading mother’s tone would she please be the designated driver of my children? Mind you, Ashley is in fact younger than either of my girls, but that’s the point—she is not one of my girls.

You see, I am their mother.

The post-traumatic stress of witnessing their first attempt on ice skates when they screamed from the center of the rink for “Mama” while my friend Stephanie secured my shoulders and twisted me to face the other way so that I would not go to their rescue is etched permanently in the working lobe of my brain. They both call me nearly every day— often, it is true, just to say hello but frequently with a cry about coping. No matter that at their age, I was darting in and out of Los Angeles Freeway traffic at wee hours of the morning, working an outside sales job that sent me into barrios and on to the Sunset Strip. Never mind that when I was nearly 26 I was looking for a job in Paris, riding on the back of a motorcycle with a guy I hardly knew, and taking road trips with girlfriends. And I will insert here, no wonder my mother tipped gin & tonics every evening after my phone calls home. I simply cannot imagine my little girls as big ones. The key word is “adult.” I still have to remember I am one, let alone consider the possibility that they are.

“Kate is married, teaches first grade and drives to work every day and Clary hails taxis and rides the New York subway. Both of them fly across the country for regular visits with family and friends, but you still don’t think they can manage a car rental?” Brad just shook his head. His sons have been men since they were ten.

I’d abandoned further discussion, realizing that he was no help and I was headed for another sleepless night of worry, when I checked my e-mail “chat” to find Kate there.

“Hi Mom!” it read. “I’m thinking I’ll just rent a car in Austin. Talk to you later…and love.”

Resting in my inbox was a note from her sister: “We’ll be fine, Mom. We’ll just get a car and figure it out. Love you..."

Lesson learned: Mother, they are older than you think. Of course, facing that means that so are you.