The Coming Back

Part of turning fifty for me has been the raising and then the letting go of my children. Even as I write this I hear my son Ted banging around upstairs. But not for long. After a lovely winter break of four weeks and four days...but who's counting...he is returning to University of Chicago to college and his freshman year. He is getting back on a plane tomorrow at four and will be gone another three months.

So that is the letting go, the part that has gradually been happening since they were born. It is familiar.

The new twist is the coming back.

For years, Joe and I have been surrounded by an extended family of friends. Family, in part, because our immediate, biological family, who we love dearly, lives far away. This extended circle of people has been there for us from Bris to Bar Mitzvah to graduation(s). We have celebrated holidays, attended funerals, and consulted over coffees, dinners, phone calls and now e-mails and texts. These people are vital to my life.

What wasn't quite a clear until a few years ago was how vital these people were to my children's lives. It was revealed a few years ago, when the children stopped leaving the dinner table following a Shabbat dinner. I didn't think much of it at the time. Oh honey, I'm sure I said, don't you want to go play with the other kids? And then child by child, and really now young adult by young adult, they started coming back to the table and hanging around. Now, of course, this greatly interfered with talking about them, but the pleasure of their company compensated. We didn't need the bribe of brownies to bring them back to the table; they actually came back to participate in the conversation.

Then it went a step further, suddenly I heard them say things like: "I always love how the table looks when we come over." or "Margo bread. Oh course she's making Margo bread. She always makes that." or "Are we having Shabbat with everyone this week? If we are, I'll tell Maya I can't sleepover on Friday." They were more than tolerating or spontaneously enjoying our gatherings; they wanted and expected them.

The coming back took two new and rewarding step over the past year. One was the fact that a member of our young clan, Kenny, actually drafted a college essay about the gathering or our havuracita, as we call it. Havurah referring to a small gathering of Jews with common interests and "ita" which is the Spanish suffix meaning little. Our little like-minded gathering of mostly Jewish, slightly eccentric folk. And now we were, according to Kenny, important enough to feature in a college application. I honestly felt honored.

The Coming Back took another, beautiful iteration this past Friday night. The setting: Shabbat on New Year's Day. We had just returned from a two week trip to Italy. Lynn and Margo, Kenny's parents, had recently arrived back in San Francisco after completing a 10,000 mile 'Victory Lap' road trip around the U.S. that they wonderfully described in their blog The Tardy Times*. Katherine and her husband, Toshio were hosting along with their 16 year old son Tobias, their back-from-college daughter, Anabel. And Anabel's new beau, Alex.

The evening began in their kitchen, which overflowed with people, delicious smells of black-eyed peas and corn bread, dogs (four including our own Toby.) The familiar, lethal step in their kitchen. We don't trip because we all know it's there. The flap of the dog door. Conversation was lively and completely unsegregated. What I mean by that is that it is just as likely to see my 18 year old son in deep conversation with 75 year old Lynn as it is for the teens to be one place, the women another, the men a third. Or as my daughter Elle would say: "Homey, we don't roll like that." In other words, we blend. We come together.

We sat. We sang the prayers. We ate. The young adults did not leave the table. They smiled and their eyes shone. They wanted, even perhaps missed being together almost as much as we missed them. Then Lynn, our elder statesman, elevated the gathering to the next level by posing the question to the various travelers, which besides ourselves and he and Margo, included Marina's stint in Ireland and Tobi's in Mexico. The initial question: "What was the most memorable place or thing you experienced during your trip?" Each person answered, tentatively, then more fully. The question expanded. Toshio described his first day in America. Katherine described an experience in Israel. Alex talked about their trip, the day before, to see the elephant seals at Año Nuevo.

They had come back. I looked at our children-now-adults. They sat till the candles gutted themselves. Their eyes shining and the conversation swelled and spilled over them. They added, took center stage, retreated, smiled, listened, laughed. And they had brought others into our midst, and I can only image they did so because we mattered. I whispered to Alex: "It must be overwhelming." No, he responded. Anabel had described us all in detail. It was wonderful.

Yes, it was.

It had to end. The candles wavered and Elle, jet lagged, fell asleep on the sofa, encircled by four protective pups. The letting go must continue. Some go tomorrow, some next week. Work and school must be re-started. Yet I recognize those comings and goings are temporary things. The table will be set again, the candles lit. They will be coming back.

NOTE: The Victory Lap is admirably described on the following blog site: http://thetardytimes.blogspot.com/

DAYS TO 50: 438.