This just in...Kids move out, puppy moves in!

I swear I didn't mean to- I was just walking by one of those sidewalk puppy fairs. The ones where you know not to stop, lest you feel tempted. I stopped. I got tempted.

It had not even been 48 hours since my son left San Francisco to move to New York. After a ridiculously teary goodbye (and I wasn't the only one crying) I watched him drive down our steep hill in a stranger's '98 VW beetle, (one of those win-win arrangements made via Craiglist) driving a stick-shift after a quick 2-hour lesson, and knowing it would be a pretty long time until I saw him again. Oh, and it was raining.

Though he hasn't lived in my house for years, I still felt a palpable silence. Now that I think about it, maybe that was inside my head, but it was present nevertheless. I spent the rest of the day moping about, watching poor TV and tearing up a lot. Though the logical half of my brain (at least I think it takes up half) reminds me that this is a positive development, a perfect time in the life of a 24-year old to experience something new and different. It's what I would have done. It's what I did do.

So two days later I found myself walking down Market St, I saw the puppy. She was so needy, so thin, so...hungry looking...in that cage that I had to take her home just to feed her. I found out that we actually shared a name, albeit for odd reasons. She was being called "D.D", short for ditch dog where she had been found. She was under a year and she needed some love from a foster family and I nominated myself for the job. My husband was surprisingly OK with the plan and we took her home, immediately renaming her Bella and introducing her to our 6 year old dog, Izzy.

After a week of fostering, I now recognize a few things about myself. One- I am a sucker (I wish I could say this surprised me), Two- I get very quickly attached (again, stating the obvious here) and three- I should not keep her. She's been a grand diversion, so she's fulfilled her role in my life. And I have fulfilled mine. Her ribs no longer show.

But it was an important lesson for me...for all moms really when we go through this sea-change with our grown kids.  I know that my kids will always need me on some level (my son called me from Ohio for help in finding a supermarket). It's just not in the same way I've been there for them for all these years. It's a drastic job description change.

And I know that now, I need to start taking care of myself. In understanding what that means, my mind drifts to all the times I have flown. The tedious safety instructions are always the same - word-for-word on every airline. "If you're traveling with a child, place your mask on your face first, then assist your child."

That's not as easy as it might sound. Yeah, on an airplane I get it. But extrapolating that wise advise and applying it to my life is a bit more challenging when my maternal instinct has always been to help my kids first and think later.

I may have had to say goodbye to my son and I may have to say goodbye to Bella, but I learned a lot this week and I know they are very important lessons in my "mom education". Just when I think I am oh so smart, another lesson gets thrown in my face. Where the hell did I put that oxygen mask?

Susan Sarandon and me

One of my favorite actresses, Susan Sarandon once said, “When I turn 80, I’d like to know that my life has been completely spent. I’d like to know that I’ve loved, I’ve help the world become a better place, that my kids are happy, that I’ve tried.”

Damn I love her thinking.

For 30 years, I have been consumed with watching as my kids grow up and then as we know happens, move out. The idea of their happiness still fills my thoughts and my heart. Some things never change. It’s like one of those old-fashioned jobs where people stayed with the same company for their whole lives, giving it their all & remaining loyal and focused. I don’t need the proverbial gold watch because watching them really is its own reward for a job I believe I executed well.

But I do remember going to social gatherings years ago & being asked ‘So, what do you do?” What a weird question, if you think about it. If I really told them what I was doing on a daily basis, it would have taken hours. Suffice to say that when I responded with “I’m a stay-at-home mom”, I would watch their eyes immediately scour the room for someone, something more interesting than me. What could I possibly contribute to a normal, intelligent adult conversation if I wasn’t out in the work world actually pulling a salary. No co-workers, no admin assistant to dump off my paperwork, no boss about which to complain. I was simply raising and nurturing my four charges, tending to their every need and trying to mold them into the best and happiest people I possibly could. Try putting that into a concise, party-friendly response.

I am happy with my work. I liked my job back then and even today I am always in awe of how the job has morphed and changed and continues to challenge me.. It sometimes feels like a moving target, but I think I’ve got the formula now.

So I’m with Sarandon here.  Like her, I have loved and done so more intensely than I ever thought possible.  Her last wish, hoping “that I’ve tried” touched me because I know that I try harder to be a good parent than I’ve ever tried anything else in my life. And that’s all I really have- the trying - because I figure if I care that intensely and for that long about something, it’s sure to come out extraordinarily well.