Living the fear

Well just to continue on my previous blogs about this journey of mine in letting go of my son, here is the story of what happened…..

So last june 13, my son finally left home. Since it was my birthday, I asked my kids if we could possibly dine out, of course they agreed…they loved the idea in fact…however, my son reminded me that he had to leave early, I guess that somehow preempted my plans of asking them to watch a movie (the truth is I was trying to delay time so that he would change his mind of leaving the following day instead, obviously, it didnt work). Anyway, as we were eating, my son, surprisingly didnt have the appetite to gorge himself with his favorite dish, he ordered just a light meal and was secretly glancing at us as we ate. He took pictures of me and her sister and was extremely quiet. I, on the other hand, tried hard not to look at him for fear that I might break down right that moment. I tried cracking out jokes which i know turned out to be a slapstick.

After the meal, we went around, bought some stuff and just enjoyed the bonding moment we were having, then it was time to go home. When we entered the house, awkward silence prevailed, then my son sat in front of the pc and started his usual browsing, I laid down and was happy coz in my mind i knew he would be glued to his seat again and forget time. But unfortunately, it didnt happen, he stood up and said…”ma maliligo nako then aalis nako” my heart was beating so fast and was wishing time would slow down, i tried hard to stop the tears from falling, so i closed my eyes and probably dozed off for a few minutes. I was awakened by a kiss on my forehead and a whisper from him saying,”ma, happy birthday, i love you” then i opened my eyes and saw him all set to leave. I was just quiet and hugged him tightly and told him to take care, I couldnt say more coz i was already shaking and i guess he sensed that so he pulled away and called his sister and hugged and kissed her too. Then he jokingly said “bye ma, see you when i see you”….i just smiled and looked down.

When I heard the front door close, i ran to the window and peeked through, (wrong move on my end, i shouldnt have done so) I saw my son, looking back several times while he drew deep breaths and slowly walked away, when he was no longer in sight, that was when i gave in to tears. I couldnt stop crying, it was so painful seeing him go. I cried and cried until i fell asleep. When I woke up late at night the pain ensued.

Come june 15, I went to work wearing the usual smile and did the normal stuff. When I went home, that creepy feeling of loneliness came back. It was my daughter’s first day of school so I was left home, alone! As i entered my room, i heard nothing but the sound of the cars passing by, it was deafening for me. I tried to sleep but i just couldnt. My son texted me saying he wanted to go home and he missed us so much. There were things that he said that broke my heart. But then he was still positive, he told me, “ma, 4 na taon lang to mabilis din lilipas to magtatapos ako ng pagaaral ko because i want to be somebody someday, and you’ll be proud of me.” I know my son is just a few hours away from us and some of you might even say, “ang OA naman he can come home on weekends” at first I thought of that too but my son said, he couldnt come home on weekends because he has saturday classes and so I said we can come over to visit, he said it was ok but he was discouraging me from doing so because he says it will only make us miss each other more, so we agreed that we would meet probably once a month…and that for me my dear readers is hard….the longest time we’ve been apart was 2 days and i missed him tremendously then…i know i will get used to this, but its just hard for me at this point, so i just write these feelings down. Writing for me has always been a therapy, it keeps my mind off things. Oh well, I guess im just a mom who is so clingy to her kids…heck! i raised them all by myself and they have always been my source of strength and have always been inseparable…my son is right, after all these, we would all end up victorious….it would probably be a struggle as we journey on but like he said, ” Mom, believe me, its all going to be worth it!” AMEN!