Sweet Memories and Empty Rooms

By Elizabeth Gonzalez

July 9, 2012

Of late, I have been having dreams of my children, now grown, well, most of them - when they were children.  Do we really appreciate our children as they are growing?  I would like to imagine that for all the hard work, all the love, all the sweet memories that we did sit back and take mental pictures of those sweet times and relished in them. 

Yet in our youth, we believed those days would live on forever. The day would never come when our little ones would leave the nest.  I have heard mothers say that they cannot wait until their children grow up and leave.  To be honest I was not one of those mothers.  I enjoyed being a mother, I loved my children dearly and enjoyed their enjoyment, wonderment, thrills and perhaps even just a little bit of me became a child again.

My dreams lately are of days gone by and I can hear in those dreams the pitter patter of my children once small running around laughing, arguing over toys, watching Scooby Doo on the television, but, but, but……I wake up.

It is then it hits me that it was just a dream of days gone by, past, never to return, sweet memories forever embedded in my heart and indelibly in my mind.  Then the ache begins in my heart because I feel the empty rooms, I hear the quietness, the stillness…..I want to scream because my heartaches for those days gone by that will never ever return.

Then I look in the room across from mine that my fourteen year-old son is sleeping in and I realize that I can still enjoy his noise, his sounds, his laughter, at least for a little while longer before it is a sweet memory and an empty room.

I thank God for my children and ask Him to keep them and bless them, but I also ask Him not to let the aches of letting go of them hurt too much.  Such sweet memories, such sweet times that I relished in while I still had them running through my rooms.  Therefore, I take mental pictures that I can recall anytime of the son still in one of my rooms. 

Today, yes, I wept for those days gone by, but I know I did appreciate my children and those days while I had my children with me; and that my son that is still with me is so loved and appreciated too.  The days go by. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, and all things come to an end.  So today I take those sweet memories and remember them as I lock away my tears in those empty rooms of my heart knowing that life will go on, but nothing is ever lost or forgotten because love lives on in a mother’s heart forever.

 

Comments

[Always On Watch]

Nice essay.

I did not have children. However, for a period of time I had de facto custody of my cousin, who was 13 years old. My parents had de facto custody of her for some time when I was in my late teens. What joy to have that child in our lives!

She was my shadow until she married -- and again as a grown woman with two children of her own after her divorce.

Now she is 45 years old. We talk occasionally; we'd get together more except for our schedules.

Anyway, when she began dating and then fell in love and left my nest to begin her own life as a wife and, later, a mother, my heart ached. I never minded the things that Mr. AOW and I sacrificed so as to give her opportunities, etc.

I'm so glad that she hasn't moved far away.

But letting go IS hard to do.

[Debbie]

Life goes on. I've known some mothers who never get over their children growing up and moving away. But that is life. That's what parents to, raise the children so they can go out on their own.

We can understand what our parents went through.

I've decided by the time we get things figured out, we are OLD, ha.

[New Attitude]

Glad to hear from a woman who appreciates motherhood. It really scares me to think of the grandparents raising so many of their children's children because the two parents are too sorry or self absorbed with their busy lives to do it.