Death by a thousand cuts: The pain of letting go of your adult child

Today is my son’s birthday. He is my firstborn, the one who made me a mother, but I won’t get to celebrate with him.

In fact, as I type this, he’s not even celebrating his birthday because he is 12,000 kilometres away in a different timezone.

This will be the first time I have not seen him on his birthday. The first time we will not be exchanging gifts and cards, enjoying a special meal together and blowing out candles on a cake. And it makes me sad. 

Don’t get me wrong. I am lucky to have spent every birthday with him thus far. I know that makes me luckier than some, but it goes against all my motherly instincts not to do those things today.

From the moment I became a mother, his mother, the urge to be with him and protect him has burned inside me.

It took years to have him. Years of infertility, recurrent miscarriages and, finally, a traumatic birth.

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He arrived, not screaming into this world, but silent − a birth complication almost snatched him from us before his life could begin. I watched as he was resuscitated, not quite out of view, and then whisked away.

I did not see him again for several hours. That burst of maternal love did not come for several more days, but even before then, I would have laid down in front of a truck to save him, such was the bond between us.

Mother and son, son and mother. We were inseparable. In the early years, it was hard to know where I ended and he began. Until that tie between us started to stretch. That invisible tether grew longer, wider.

From baby, to toddler, to little boy, big boy, adolescent, teen, late teen and finally an adult, that string, whether you call it the heart string or the apron string, strained and strained until it almost, but never quite, snapped.

You go from being your child’s favourite person to their least favourite person almost overnight. One minute he is clinging to your legs, begging you not to leave him at childcare for a few hours, to hopping on a bus for school camp without even looking back.

That first time without contact feels like a piece of your heart has been taken out of your chest.

You get through it, but you are never quite the same. Nor is he. Emboldened by the knowledge he can do just fine without you.

Oh, how it hurts, having your firstborn child break up with you. It is like death by a thousand cuts.

Sometimes I catch myself giving him the guilts about not spending time with me. Or even worse, he catches me.

“Mum, you sound like a needy girlfriend,” he admonished me recently.

Chastened, I retreated, reminding myself he would come back, as he had before. But will he?

It is part of the circle of life for our children to leave us.

If it wasn’t for the fact young adults in Australia are delaying adulthood due to cost-of-living pressures, he would most likely have left the nest by now. 

Had it not been for sporting and uni commitments, he would probably be traipsing across the globe, as many of his peers had done, for months on end.

His father was two years younger than him when he left his family behind in the UK to play football in Australia, never to return. I left my home in regional NSW at the same age he is now.

He still joins us and his sister on family holidays − we pay, of course − but how much longer will that happen?

Recently, he has talked more and more about moving overseas for work or sport, or a stint studying abroad. Each time he says it, it is like an arrow piercing my heart.

How will I cope without seeing him every day? Knowing he is safe? Listening for a car to pull up or the key in the door? The sounds that calm a mother’s heart.

Then I remind myself I will have to, for he is not mine. Yes, he was given to me for a short while, too short, but he was only on loan.

Just one year as a baby was all I got. A couple as a toddler… you get the drift.

My job was to raise him, the best I could. To prepare him for life, and the world, without me. There is no rule book that comes with parenthood. Nothing to tell you if you are doing it right, or wrong.

Yes, there are milestones along the way to tick off to help you navigate the journey, but all you can really do is hope you’ve lit the path sufficiently so they can find their way when you’re not there beside them.

So while I am sad today that I don’t get to wrap my arms around my son on his birthday, I am happy he is walking along his own path. A path that has been illuminated by the thousands of steps we took together. 

My job was not to accompany him on his journey, but prepare him to head off on his own − and there is no greater birthday gift I can give him across those 12,000 kilometres today.