Emskyrooney: Genres

Emskyrooney: Genres

Baby, Baby, Where Did Our Love Go?

Editor's Note:  This may be wisdom, without wit…mea culpa…can I be excused this time?

A lot of newspaper headlines these days invoke lines from song lyrics, which irks me because it seems lazy for an editor to fall back on popular phrases rather than use their education to write a proper headline.  I guess their goal to capture my interest through a lilting lyric outweighs the concept of providing terse copy.   I admittedly fell into the same trap this weekend, as I watched my youngest child interact with his significant other, and my brain came up with, “baby, baby…where did our love go?”  It says it all.

Yes, my baby, our youngest son (at 27 now) has found his love, and mom isn’t number one anymore.  Actually, Spencer calls me “Ma”, which I find incredibly sweet from him but would dislike from anyone else; it sounds too old fashioned, as though it came from a character in a faded novel.   Spencer and Frances arrived here one night from their three week post-law school/bar exam European jaunt, which also celebrated their recent engagement.  Frances woke up first and headed to my laptop to write on her travel blog.  Spence came into the kitchen, rested and pleasant, and asked me where she was, so I directed him to the library.  As I watched, he walked towards her chair, wrapped his arms around her and bent over and kissed her, holding her for a few long moments.  Yes, it was sweet, very sweet, as my head said “baby, baby…”   They slept together in his “old” room, thus they had been apart for about fifteen minutes.  On the other hand, I have much less time with him, and always look forward to our reconnecting, mother and son.  It is special, there is no denying it.  Gulp.  OK, misty eyes.

It was at that very moment that I realized it was over.  He is not my baby any more, he has a new baby to love, and Ma is still important, but the woman in his life is Frances and I better not forget it.  Competing with her, or with Nelson’s fiancée, San, is out of the question.  It is undoubtedly time for me to let go, and to not hold onto them so tightly anymore.  I can do it, I just needed to know it was time, although I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t ready for it. 

When Emily brought Paul into her life, she was already working and living in Boston for five years.  I had grown accustomed to loosening my attachment to her, and we had entered into a new phase of our relationship, one I like to call girlfriends.  I am not a proponent of parents being friends to their children; we’re guardians first and foremost.  So it was nice to morph into that relationship, and Emily and I have so much fun together doing the girl thing, as we call it.  Her wedding to Paul was beautiful, and when they drove away the next day the tears hit me hard; she was gone, forever, that baby was gone.  But we already had established our girlfriend relationship, including planning the wedding together, and I knew we would be fine, just a little different. 

Nelson, the boy in the middle, engaged to San, who he has been with long enough for us to already feel that she is our daughter in law; he has been on his own in NYC for almost ten years.  I’ve made my peace with that, after all, it’s only a short bus ride into the city and we have had great adventures together, made our own fun, mother and son.   Who can forget a crisp January skate on the ice at Rockefeller Center?   But Spencer is my baby, my little guy, my last one.  Why in the world did I think he still held that spot?  He’s an adults, has his own life, etc.  I should have known, but I didn’t acknowledge it to myself.  Until he found his partner in life, I just held myself up to be the most important person, silly old me.    I’m quite sure now that I was mistaken and should have given that emotion the boot a long time ago, but didn’t. 

So there you have it.  Baby’s love is gone.  Where did our love go? I can’t help myself, I love you, but I understand.  It’s all right now.  I can do it.  I did it before, and I pledge to take my love down a notch, be in the background.  But I will be there, just like my mother is for me, always there.  Why in the heck does it have to come to me in the form of a song lyric – don’t I have any fresh creative thought in my own head?  Again, silly me.  Baby, baby.  Guess I can just wish for more of those grandchildren, that’s the ticket, sweet, loving grandchildren.