Learning to Sail and Let Go

We mothers like to hover. Even those of us who preach about not hovering, well, sometimes we still hover. It’s hard to resist at times, despite what we know about letting go.

For me this summer, “letting go” came in the form of watching my older boys learn how to sail. Yes, on the water, in the wind, and with me watching helplessly from the shore. (Oh, I tried to sail with them once, but I immediately tipped the sailboat and was never invited back.)

Early this summer, friends of the family made an offer. They had a Sunfish, a small monohull sailboat, that hadn’t been on the water in a few years, and if our boys were interested, they’d loan it to them for the summer. My boys were definitely interested. The lake we go to has sailboat races every Sunday, and my boys wanted to be part of that. (Spoiler: a Sunfish cannot win against a Hobie Cat.)

The boat had belonged to our friends’ late son who had been a military pilot. He died young while serving in the United States Navy. With that bit of knowledge and history of the boat, my boys committed to racing it, win or lose (it would mostly be “lose”), every Sunday.

There was just one thing: My boys didn’t know how to sail.

So most days with even a hint of a breeze, they were on the water learning how to harness the wind with the Sunfish. I sat on the dock and watched them, all the while thinking about our friends’ son, the owner of the boat, and his mother.

The first time my oldest son raced the Sunfish alone, I trailed behind him in a motorboat. When I say I trailed behind him, I mean that I kept my distance (sort of) but stayed close enough to yell out really unhelpful advice. I just could not stop thinking about everything that could go wrong, and, well, he looked a bit like Truman at the end of the “Truman Show,” and that’s a very powerful ending. When my son eventually tipped the Sunfish, I was glad the motorboat was there to tow him back to shore.

My son felt otherwise: “Why did you trail me? That was the most annoying thing ever! I could have swum to shore!”

The next weekend, someone else from the racing group offered to take one of my sons on his Hobie Cat while the other son sailed the Sunfish with his grandfather. Since my dad had eyes on the Sunfish racer, I was free to hover at the Hobie Cat while the seasoned racer taught my son how to rig the sails. Someday, I know my sons will tell the story of how they learned to sail, and it will always include this generous racer whose voice exudes calm and patience.

But my son gave me a look that day that said, “You can go now,” as I stood awkwardly on the dock and asked whether he’d need a jacket. Finally, I got the picture. My boys are growing up. They don’t need me as much as before.

However, that didn’t stop me from getting on the committee boat, which is the official finish line of the race, and watching everything from there. And that’s when I saw up close how the Sunfish crawls to the finish (think: Spongebob’s “Two … hours … later …”) and the Hobie Cats zip along to the end.

But I also saw something else. My boys, under the instruction of their mentor, were capable and dedicated. They shifted their weight and their sails effortlessly. They tacked and — and, well, they did a bunch of other things that looked really cool but for which I have no eloquent words because I don’t know anything about sailing. And no matter how many hours had passed, if the boys were in the late-pilot’s Sunfish, they were determined to finish the race.

As the summer went on, the boys continued to practice with the Sunfish and they took turns helping race the Hobie Cat. I watched their confidence grow as I let myself relax.

The last sailboat race was this weekend, and there was a party afterward. My sons were some of the youngest participants by many years, and they also had the distinction of losing nearly every race for the entire season. But it never mattered. Those races, that Sunfish, and the older racers who had taken my boys under their, er, sail — it had all been about something more, something bigger. Because of the generosity of others, my boys gained a lifelong skill. But they gained also by learning from those of another generation and honoring the memory of someone who, like them, learned to sail at the lake.

My young sailors are forever better for it, and someday I know they will pay it forward. I’m just glad I finally got out of the way to let it happen.

When the First One Goes

We dropped Ford, our oldest, at college last month, and, stupidly, I cleaned his room soon after (not recommended). When I came out of Ford’s room crying, his younger brother, Owen (16), said, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Ford’s not coming home to play with Legos,” I said.

By the look on Owen’s face, this already seemed obvious to him. Old news, if you will.

But for so many days, in the wake of Ford’s absence, I had buoyed myself with other people’s reminders that he will be back and, “He’s not gone forever.”

This advice appeared to be true. Ford would indeed be back soon for a family friend’s wedding.

But when I cleaned his room that day, I realized for the first time that although he is coming back, he isn’t coming back to play with the Legos. He will never be back to use the matchbox cars lined up on his bookshelf, which I was now dusting.

My son would come home for sure, but something was gone just the same, and that needed to be recognized.

With each toy I picked up in Ford’s room, I heard echoes of times gone by, times that won’t return, even as my adult son surely will.

Lifting a toy Darth Vader to dust underneath brought the sounds of a boyhood Ford promising to make his bed for a week if he could just get “one more action figure.”

Touching the small statue of a football player unleashed the sounds of Ford and his brothers wrestling in the front yard.

A toy Mustang heralded memories of little Ford sitting on his knees and pushing cars around our hallway rug, which served as his racetrack.

A board game shoved under the bed sent echoes of Ford running in the door after school to see if his new game had come in the mail.

And the Legos! The thousands and thousands of bricks each told me a story of the past, a time that is Not. Coming. Back.

And that’s what’s sad.

It’s not Ford being gone or starting his own life. I’m happy for Ford and what awaits him.

It’s echoes of a time that has passed that brings the tears. It’s grief.

And yet, standing at the kitchen counter that day, with a dust rag in my hand, Owen looked at my tear-stained face with utter confusion.

“I don’t play with Legos anymore either, Mom,” he said matter of factly. “And Ford will be back.”

Yes, but my Little Ford is gone. I see that now.

And soon it will be the same with Owen.

Hanging on to a Thin Hanging File

This is where I am. This is how motherhood is going right now. 

One son, my oldest, Ford, has a file in the family cabinet that is full. His SAT scores, class rank, and future plans — ones that don’t include me or his father — are tucked away behind a label that has had his name on it for more that 17 years. It’s a file that is busting at the seams; it takes up more room than even our bank statements. 

In less than a year, Ford leaves home to go to college. 

My youngest son, Lindell, has a file that can still hold its contents. Its accordion bottom is not stretched by years of report cards and reading scores. His most recent file is a contract with his best friend, a hand-written, photo-copied promise that they will never to live more than 20 minutes away from each other. 

Somewhere mashed in the middle is Owen, who will be 16 soon. I know what that means: Soon he will drive. Soon he will have test scores and college applications. Soon Owen will set his sights on someplace that isn’t home. 

Owen’s file has room for 3 more report cards and a couple mid-year assessments. His kindergarten reports, the ones where teachers made handwritten notes in cursive, are stuffed in the back, behind GPAs, reading scores and the log of his driving hours. 

It’s as if 17 years of motherhood are contained in three files. And when I saw them this past week, I sat down and cried. 

Ford’s bountiful file looms there like a clock that is ticking too loud when you are trying to sleep. I don’t even need to go through its content. I know what’s there. It’s college invitations, yet fulfilled, and transcripts that in just a few month’s time someone will need. The early notes home — the ones where he was Student of the Month or had raised the most money for Jump Rope for Heart — are stuffed and wrinkled in the back. But I can still remember the face. I remember the dark brown eyes and smile that filled his face as he ran from the bus to the front door with a certificate from his teacher. I remember the doctor’s notes I brought home with his weight, height and percentiles. 

They are all stuffed into a file folder from Staples that has seen better days. 

But Lindell’s file…his has room. Lindell’s teachers still send hand-written notes. College is somewhere he doesn’t want to go. Not yet. And the photocopied contract with his friend lies on its side, in the front of the file, like a marker of time. 

This too shall pass. 

I remember the month that Owen’s voice changed. One day he came home from school, and before he slammed his bedroom door, he told me that I had packed the wrong thing for lunch. His soft voice was scratchy and high. 

I texted my husband at work and said, “Owen’s doing something really weird with his voice.”

“Maybe it’s changing,” Dustin said. 

“No, I think he’s just trying to annoy me.”

And sure enough, two weeks later, the soft, child-like sound of Owen’s voice was gone. In another month, he’d come through the door looking so much like a man, Adam’s apple and all, that it would cause me to catch my breath. 

I no longer knew his skin, his face, his hair, his voice. When I reached out to hug him, he recoiled. His fingers and toes were foreign to me. 

And the folder in his file upstairs was getting fatter. 

I know I’m on borrowed time with Lindell. He still holds my hand as we walk into the grocery store. I’m still the first person he asks for in the morning. And when he scrapes his knee, he still wants a Band-Aid His favorite toys are Legos. He watches cartoons. He wants his peanut butter and jelly cut into funny shapes. 

But soon he won’t. His file is expanding, too. 

Next month, Lindell begins middle school. It’s hard to believe. I remember him running down the sidewalk screaming “Mommy” as his backpack bounced up and down on his back and his older brothers sauntered behind, trying to be cool. 

Lindell still gets on his knees when he comes home to greet the dog. 

Lindell still wants waffles shaped like the Death Star. 

Lindell still thinks staying up past 9 p.m. is a treat and that falling asleep in a sleeping bag is only surpassed in awesomeness by picking out the theme for one’s birthday cake.

He is amused by the back of a cereal box.

He thinks girls are strange.

He hangs his Little League hat from a hook each night.

And he keeps his Lego creations on a special shelf. 

Yet soon, he will change, too. His file will be consumed by everything official, like test scores and applications. He will set his sights on someplace that isn’t home. 

But for now, he’s my baby, the last one with a soft voice and quick tears. And I am clinging to every day, until his file expands just like his brothers’ and he leaves a man that I only know because of the glimmer of the child in his smile and the fattened folder upstairs that tells me he once was a baby I held in my arms and whispered, “I can’t wait to see who you become.”