Fiction
I Love My Son Wildly
by Barbara Rady Kazdan
by Barbara Rady Kazdan
Jake’s about to exchange wedding vows with Anna. He’s happy. I’m thrilled. And wondering . . . how will this affect our relationship, the bond we share?
An invitation’s exuberant “A Votre Santé, Anna and Jake!” prompted me to RSVP an enthusiastic “Yes” for an engagement party in Anna’s hometown. Then Jake emailed, “We’ll be sharing an Airbnb with Anna’s sister and her husband. There’s a third bedroom. Want to join?”
Yes again! More than welcome—I’m included. Flight plans made, while wondering how I’d get from the airport to the small town destination, Jake texted, “We’ll pick you up at the airport Friday and drop you off Sunday.” On my travel day he came to the airport alone so we’d have time together before the festivities.
What’s the definition of visceral? Because each time we walked together that weekend, he reached out and took my hand. And each time a jolt of love struck my heart.
Surprise! At midlife, the news that our family of four was about to become five evoked my whole-hearted delight but my husband Dan’s reservations. A CPA, Dan had carefully calculated our financial future, including college expenses for our nine and ten-year-old daughters. A third child? He hesitated. But a new life was growing inside me, rousing my instant love and fierce protection. Our daughters? Over the moon! Dan caught the wave of our excitement. He welcomed our new baby, fathered him enthusiastically, and expanded his parenting role when Jake entered school and I re-entered the workforce. But by Jake’s 10th birthday his father had retreated from the working world and from fulsome engagement in Jake’s life.
As we left the parents’ meeting about our eldest daughter’s approaching commencement proceedings, I said, “Can you believe we have a child graduating from high school?”
He said, “What I can’t believe is we’ll be attending these parents’ meetings for another 10 years.”
With our daughters away at college, this man, whose bright destiny had flamed out at 40, gave up on his career and on fathering his son. So it was mom, not dad, cheering from the stands at Jake’s softball games, buying his first jockstrap, taking him and a friend fishing, and more.
“Catch!” Jake would appear in the doorway to my room, tossing a football to me. Or he would ask, “Want to watch a movie?” In our house I was his go-to playmate—his sisters were in college, his dad unavailable. I never said no. And I loved it.
During school vacations, the two of us began taking our version of family trips, without his stuck-in-a-Barcalounger Dad. We traveled by car from Houston to the Rocky Mountains and to a dude ranch in Texas, by plane to our nation’s capital, then by train to visit his sister at UPenn and take in Philadelphia’s historic sites—banking memories for withdrawal throughout our lives. “I can see him casting a line into the sky-reflecting water in Dillon, Colorado, the mountains surrounding us, holding up his silvery catch while I snapped pictures. The best French Toast ever? “Raton, New Mexico!”
In his senior year of high school, over dinner I mentioned, “A colleague offered me his time-share in Kauai the last week in December.”
“We’re going!” Jake exclaimed. Weeks later he was plunging into the surf on a pristine Hawaiian beach and tasting sushi for the first time. Wherever we were Jake lightened each day with his humor and heightened my experiences with his exuberance. “C’mon,” he said, taking my hand as I warily negotiated each scary step on a narrow staircase of slimy, skinny logs with steep drops on each side, winding down to a secluded beach. Only Jake could get his risk-averse, 50-plus, city-bred, suburban-coddled mom to follow his lead. It was worth it. A private little paradise: white sand, gorgeous fruit-laden foliage, exotic birds swooping overhead, Jake yelling “Look!” as he jumped the waves in glistening aquamarine waters. These moments, and so many others, would fill a treasure chest of incalculable value that we carry in our shared memory.
Those trips continued from Jake’s early adolescence through his twenties, thirties, and beyond—driving the Old Natchez Trace from Mississippi to Nashville; traveling by train from Vancouver to Banff, and taking side trips to San Francisco, Big Sur while he worked in northern California. More recently we met in Manhattan and then in Maine, discovering these distinctly different, equally delightful destinations.
Why would a young, now middle-aged man want to travel with his mom? Were there equal shares of sustaining the bond between us, enjoying each other’s company, brightening my life, and filling in for her husband who wouldn’t, then couldn’t, share her wanderlust? Then, widowed, suddenly I was single, like Jake. With his sisters now busy moms, Jake stepped up to travel with me, always asking, “Where should we go next?”
While engaged and enthralled with his bride-to-be, we snatched times together in quick bursts: a mother-son getaway to the Santa Ynez mountains after an L.A. visit; breakfast through lunch during a “meet-her-family” visit; and that long ride from the airport before the engagement party. On every visit I know Jake and I will carve out some “us time,” and the three of us will travel together as well. After meeting Anna’s relatives in France, he said, “Her mom showed us places that were important to her—her school, the house she grew up in . . . We’d like to do a trip like that with you in Chicago.”
A lifetime ago I held his hand when he was gaining his footing in the world. Since coming into his own he’s held mine, gently steadying me, signaling, “I’m here for you,” always coaxing me, “C’mon, try it, it’ll be fun!” We laugh together, challenge each other at Scrabble, find pleasure in whatever we’re doing and wherever we go.
I stand at the precipice of old age. At 37, he’s crossing the threshold to married life. Taking my hand now? A promise of enduring connection and devotion.
An invitation’s exuberant “A Votre Santé, Anna and Jake!” prompted me to RSVP an enthusiastic “Yes” for an engagement party in Anna’s hometown. Then Jake emailed, “We’ll be sharing an Airbnb with Anna’s sister and her husband. There’s a third bedroom. Want to join?”
Yes again! More than welcome—I’m included. Flight plans made, while wondering how I’d get from the airport to the small town destination, Jake texted, “We’ll pick you up at the airport Friday and drop you off Sunday.” On my travel day he came to the airport alone so we’d have time together before the festivities.
What’s the definition of visceral? Because each time we walked together that weekend, he reached out and took my hand. And each time a jolt of love struck my heart.
Surprise! At midlife, the news that our family of four was about to become five evoked my whole-hearted delight but my husband Dan’s reservations. A CPA, Dan had carefully calculated our financial future, including college expenses for our nine and ten-year-old daughters. A third child? He hesitated. But a new life was growing inside me, rousing my instant love and fierce protection. Our daughters? Over the moon! Dan caught the wave of our excitement. He welcomed our new baby, fathered him enthusiastically, and expanded his parenting role when Jake entered school and I re-entered the workforce. But by Jake’s 10th birthday his father had retreated from the working world and from fulsome engagement in Jake’s life.
As we left the parents’ meeting about our eldest daughter’s approaching commencement proceedings, I said, “Can you believe we have a child graduating from high school?”
He said, “What I can’t believe is we’ll be attending these parents’ meetings for another 10 years.”
With our daughters away at college, this man, whose bright destiny had flamed out at 40, gave up on his career and on fathering his son. So it was mom, not dad, cheering from the stands at Jake’s softball games, buying his first jockstrap, taking him and a friend fishing, and more.
“Catch!” Jake would appear in the doorway to my room, tossing a football to me. Or he would ask, “Want to watch a movie?” In our house I was his go-to playmate—his sisters were in college, his dad unavailable. I never said no. And I loved it.
During school vacations, the two of us began taking our version of family trips, without his stuck-in-a-Barcalounger Dad. We traveled by car from Houston to the Rocky Mountains and to a dude ranch in Texas, by plane to our nation’s capital, then by train to visit his sister at UPenn and take in Philadelphia’s historic sites—banking memories for withdrawal throughout our lives. “I can see him casting a line into the sky-reflecting water in Dillon, Colorado, the mountains surrounding us, holding up his silvery catch while I snapped pictures. The best French Toast ever? “Raton, New Mexico!”
In his senior year of high school, over dinner I mentioned, “A colleague offered me his time-share in Kauai the last week in December.”
“We’re going!” Jake exclaimed. Weeks later he was plunging into the surf on a pristine Hawaiian beach and tasting sushi for the first time. Wherever we were Jake lightened each day with his humor and heightened my experiences with his exuberance. “C’mon,” he said, taking my hand as I warily negotiated each scary step on a narrow staircase of slimy, skinny logs with steep drops on each side, winding down to a secluded beach. Only Jake could get his risk-averse, 50-plus, city-bred, suburban-coddled mom to follow his lead. It was worth it. A private little paradise: white sand, gorgeous fruit-laden foliage, exotic birds swooping overhead, Jake yelling “Look!” as he jumped the waves in glistening aquamarine waters. These moments, and so many others, would fill a treasure chest of incalculable value that we carry in our shared memory.
Those trips continued from Jake’s early adolescence through his twenties, thirties, and beyond—driving the Old Natchez Trace from Mississippi to Nashville; traveling by train from Vancouver to Banff, and taking side trips to San Francisco, Big Sur while he worked in northern California. More recently we met in Manhattan and then in Maine, discovering these distinctly different, equally delightful destinations.
Why would a young, now middle-aged man want to travel with his mom? Were there equal shares of sustaining the bond between us, enjoying each other’s company, brightening my life, and filling in for her husband who wouldn’t, then couldn’t, share her wanderlust? Then, widowed, suddenly I was single, like Jake. With his sisters now busy moms, Jake stepped up to travel with me, always asking, “Where should we go next?”
While engaged and enthralled with his bride-to-be, we snatched times together in quick bursts: a mother-son getaway to the Santa Ynez mountains after an L.A. visit; breakfast through lunch during a “meet-her-family” visit; and that long ride from the airport before the engagement party. On every visit I know Jake and I will carve out some “us time,” and the three of us will travel together as well. After meeting Anna’s relatives in France, he said, “Her mom showed us places that were important to her—her school, the house she grew up in . . . We’d like to do a trip like that with you in Chicago.”
A lifetime ago I held his hand when he was gaining his footing in the world. Since coming into his own he’s held mine, gently steadying me, signaling, “I’m here for you,” always coaxing me, “C’mon, try it, it’ll be fun!” We laugh together, challenge each other at Scrabble, find pleasure in whatever we’re doing and wherever we go.
I stand at the precipice of old age. At 37, he’s crossing the threshold to married life. Taking my hand now? A promise of enduring connection and devotion.
