Lexicon for Saying Goodbye
WENDY FONTAINE
A
A girl, nearing the end of childhood, who knows the words to every Blink-182 song as well as thirty-nine digits of pi, who practices her driving skills in an empty community college parking lot on a Sunday afternoon, fists gripping the wheel so tightly her knuckles begin to go numb.
A signal left. A signal right. A four-point turn by the maple tree.
A woman, nearing the end of motherhood, who knew this day was coming, who sits in the passenger seat saying things like go easy, go slower, who practices her own kind of letting go, one finger at a time, though inside she is white-knuckling the entire ride.
B
Because you’re almost sixteen. Because this is Los Angeles and Los Angelenos must know how to drive. Because you’ll have to get yourself to work one day. Because you shouldn’t count on other people to get you to the places you’ll need to go.
C
College recruiters. College visits. College brochures and applications.
College tuition at a public four-year institution, up 179 percent over the last twenty years.
Can people really afford this? Short answer: No. Long answer: No, Americans owe nearly two trillion dollars in student loan debt. It’s a predatory system, with interest piling up quicker than borrowers can repay it. One in fifteen contemplates suicide.
D
Dream (mine): The night you stopped breastfeeding, I dreamed we were playing on a blanket on the living room floor when you suddenly turned into a butterfly and flew away.
Dream (yours): The night before sleepaway camp, you dreamed I got struck by lightning. You came to my room while I was sleeping to make sure I was still there, that I was still breathing.
E
Endings are the hardest part of the story to write. I never know what to say or how to say it.
F
Fears (yours): grasshoppers, spiders, roller coasters, clowns. Wildfires that swallow houses and everything inside them.
When you were two, your father left to be with another woman. We moved out of our family home in New Jersey, back to your birthplace in Maine, leaving behind your bed, your books, your lavender stuffed bunny. We settled into our own apartment, borrowed an air mattress and some dishes from my parents, found a job (for me) and a daycare (for you). A dear friend gifted you a box of toys, including a black-and-white stuffed cow that you still have today.
Fear (mine): that something will happen to that cow, that one day your heart will break and I won’t know how to fix it.
G
Green Day t-shirts in the wash. Green Day posters on the wall. Green Day concert at Dodger Stadium, summer 2021, when you sang so loud you were hoarse for a week, when you danced so hard you gave yourself whiplash.
H
How quickly the time has gone by. How long it’s been since I taught you your colors, your numbers, your ABCs.
How much you’ve grown and changed. Once a dragon-loving toddler with rocks in her pockets; now a punk kid who writes songs in her bedroom and draws on her body with tattoo pens.
How it seems like a million years ago and just yesterday at the same time.
I
Inventory: an itemized list of contents or belongings. For instance: laundry on the floor, sneakers on the stairs, guitar picks and hair ties everywhere.
I ask you three times before dinner to empty the dishwasher. The next day, it’s still full. I threaten to cancel your guitar lesson. You roll your eyes. I take your phone. You storm up the stairs to your room, slam the door, blast music.
In the morning, you wrap your arms around my neck. Nestle your face into the skin beneath my chin. Implicit apology.
Inventory: an accounting of all the ways we bicker and argue and nag. All the ways we push each other away, then pull each other back.
J
Juggling (me): car repairs, grocery lists, deadlines, doctor appointments.
Juggling (you): classes, exams, friendships, swim practices. Tennis balls (literally) in your bedroom when you’re supposed to be doing your homework.
K
Know that I am here for you. Whatever you drop, I’ll help you pick it up.
L
Last year of junior high. Last family vacation. Last trip to the mall for school clothes and ice cream.
Last night you were supposed to take out the trash. What happened?
Last time trick-or-treating. Last time painting eggs.
Last semester of pandemic home-schooling, after which you went back to the classroom in a mask, sitting six feet apart, kids barely speaking to each other, and I watched the clock until 2:35, wondering if you were okay, if you were feeling scared or lonely or lost.
Like me.
M
Mother: the person who gives birth to a child.
Mother: the person who takes care of the child, physically and emotionally.
Mother: the person who raises the child, who teaches and nurtures and guides them into adulthood.
My mother was supposed to protect me from my father. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She was afraid of him too – of his anger, his mood swings, his drinking, his yelling. Now here I am, a mother myself, trying to protect you from everything and everyone, things I can see and things I can’t.
N
Need to call the driving school.
Need to work on that list of colleges. Need to research financial aid.
Need to find a good therapist, to practice separation. Need to find things to keep myself busy when you’re gone. Hiking, painting, yoga, books.
Need to know you’re going to be okay. That I’m going to be okay.
Need to practice being okay.
O
Other words for mother.
Other words for daughter. For only child.
Other words for separation, for goodbye.
What will we call ourselves when you’re living on your own?
Own. Now there’s a strange word. Something that belongs to a person or a thing.
Someday I won’t own you and you won’t own me.
P
Pressure: to be a good student, be a good athlete, be a good friend. Be respectful, be responsible. Wear the right clothes. Say the right things. Be the person they want you to be.
Pressure: to be a good mother, be a good neighbor, be a good writer. Say the right things. Be the person you need me to be.
Nearly half of all teenage girls suffered anxiety or depression during the pandemic. Public health experts call it a “youth mental health crisis.”
Q
Questions (from me)
How was your day? What did you do in school? Do you have homework? Are you feeling okay? Stressed about anything? Want to talk about it? Anything I can do to help?
Quiet (from you)
R
Red lights. Road signs. Rush hour. Riding along in the passenger seat, I am reminded that you are, technically, still a child, even though you look grown (gr-own). Your eyes, focused on the road ahead. Your shoulders, squared and confident. Your lips, pursed with determination.
You are definitely your mother’s daughter, even if you don’t want to admit it.
S
Sixteen months after we arrived in that rental apartment, the one with the air mattress and the borrowed dishes, we made plans to get out, go someplace new. Start our lives over, on our own terms - our days no longer shaped by the man who disappeared.
Studying (me), for the graduate school entrance exam.
Scholarship (me), to a university in Los Angeles.
Star-gazing (us), from our seats on a westbound plane. You, with that stuffed cow pressed up against the window. Me, with a flutter in my chest and all the courage I could muster, hoping you could see that I was scared but also unsinkable.
T
That time you broke your first pair of glasses.
That time you hid under the kitchen table because you didn’t want to wear pants. Or socks. Or shoes.
That time you beatboxed in the school talent show. That time you helped the boy with autism because he was afraid to go out on stage.
That time you kicked the school bully in the butt, then took yourself to the principal’s office to confess.
That time you held my hand after I fell down the stairs. When my foot swelled and I couldn’t walk or drive or make dinner and you said, It’s okay, mom. I can take care of myself.
The time (it’s coming) when I will drop you off at college and drive away. When I will go to bed knowing you are no longer right down the hall in your own bed, sprawled like a starfish across the sheets. When I won’t know at all where you are or what you’re doing. When we will both find out that you were right – you could take care of yourself.
U
Unconscious mind: the part of me that is still nine years old, still terrified of my father, still hiding in my bedroom hoping he won’t barge in and yell.
Unwanted, uneasy, unloved. When you’re at school, I convince myself that this is how you feel. I picture you alone, eating lunch by yourself or wandering the halls looking for friends.
Then comes a text. You want to know if you can stay late to hang out with your classmates. That’s when I know my worries are unwarranted, unnecessary, unreal.
Unconscious motive: impulses and memories that influence our behaviors even if we aren’t totally aware of them.
V
Vigilance, hyper: anticipating trouble or danger, every minute of every day, everywhere I go. If I’m ready for it, if I’m prepared, maybe then I can keep it from hurting us. Or at least keep it from hurting you.
W
What if something bad happens? What if you get hit by a car? What if you get kidnapped? What if there’s a school shooter, mall shooter, supermarket shooter. There were 692 mass shootings in America in 2021, the year we saw Green Day. That night at the show, we made a plan. If anything happened (shooter), we’d meet outside the stadium under the giant red baseball. We’d run or hide, depending on where the shots were coming from.
Why do we have to think about these things? Why must we always have a plan?
Why does the world contain so much heartache, disappointment, and pain?
X
XOXO
The Xs are for kisses. The Os are for hugs. When you were little, I had you convinced my kisses were magic. I’d close my eyes and make a big show of taking two deep breaths. You’d close your eyes too. Then I’d press my lips to your scraped knee or your stubbed toe and instantly the pain would disappear.
If only it were still that easy to unburden you.
Y
Years (two more until graduation)
Yearbooks (one more until graduation)
Yesterday you came to me with a fistful of student ID cards. From elementary school, when you donned an orange t-shirt and a blue necktie for class pictures; to junior high, when you started to wear your hair long; to high school, when you pulled it away from your face into a tight ponytail. Your personality morphing and refining from one photograph to the next. You, becoming your own person.
Z
Zodiac (you): Libra. Outgoing, musical, diplomatic and fair, favors harmony over conflict.
Zodiac (me): Capricorn. Ambitious, resilient, hardworking but bossy, determined to overcome obstacles.
Zen (you). Zealous (me).
Zoom sessions (me) with a marriage and family therapist, one hour every other Thursday while you are in history class. The therapist teaches me how to cope with separation, how to cultivate independence, how to recognize that you are safe and confident and strong.
Like me.
I know she’s right, that it’s time to let you go. But still – it hurts. Like part of my body shearing away. Like half of me disappears every time you’re gone.
Endings are still the hardest thing. I don’t have the words for goodbye, not yet, but I am practicing. I am rehearsing. Slowly, reluctantly, loosening my grip.
