On Change
And how we might learn to embrace it
Sometimes it fills me with dread to see pictures of kids whose diapers I once changed draped in a cap and gown. Of course, I’m proud of them, and obviously would never wish upon them the tragedy of baby food forever.
But watching them morph into grown folks sometimes unravels me. As they change, so do I, so do we. My older son Kai now can reach top shelf items I need a step stool to touch. He schools me about how to be gracious and kind, how to communicate and feel deeply, how to love and take risks.
While he looks forward to playing in the World Cup or being a Champions League star, or going to university, exploring the world, his grandparents are looking backwards at what they did and did not accomplish. In a perfect world, they are looking to him as a mark of their legacies. I can only hope they will see that all they’ve done in their lives has been a gift to help him thrive.
Ancient cultures look at ancestry as a gift. To become an elder means that we can guide the future generations through grief, joy, our changing bodies. To be at the edges of existence means we can see what matters. At the ends of life, we understand that it is how (and who) we love, not what we’ve done, that cement out legacy.
But when you are (as I am) in what my dear friend Pat calls the “Sandwich Generation”—all the messy (and yummy) innards between tending to our children and caring for our aging parents—it’s too easy to forget what matters. Some days I am so wrapped up in what to make for dinner, or a writing deadline to sit with all the feels over the changes in the elders in my life, or my kids transitioning into young adults.
When I see those graduation photos, when I think of how little time I really have left, I force myself to take note of what matters. I won’t be remembered by my work life unless I make my work my life, nor how poorly I clean my house is, nor how terribly I cook. The beings who love me will remember how I presented my love for them.
What we love and how we show it
Growing up, a weeping willow tree fronted my house. Most days, I sat under that tree to read, to hold my dog in his elderly years, to hide. As a child I wasn’t paying attention to its changes—the budding leaves, the fallen brown crunchy ones, the overgrown branches. All I cared about was how it shaded me.
Behind our Santa Cruz house was a giant oak tree. At night an owl hooted from the branches. In the morning the songbirds took over. That tree shaded Kai’s bar mitzvah, my 40th birthday, Nikko’s sing-along shin-dig where he (at 5) knew all the words to Snoop Dogg’s “Young, Wild and Free.” A neighbor told me that I must always tend to the ivy that crept up the trunk because it would strangle the life from the tree. Up until that point, I never really understood that it was my responsibility to physically tend to the natural world in my yard.
Now, that the massive pepper tree in my San Diego house fell over, I am busy planting trees—citrus trees, a peach tree, an avocado, banana, jacaranda. I’m starting to see that to have shade, we must prune and water the trees; to have fruit, we must tend to the ground under our feet. I’m starting to see that if I want to feed my sons from these trees, I must also take care of them.
Change can inspire action
I used to carry Kai everywhere and now he towers above me. He’s becoming self-sufficient, so my energy isn’t focused on making sure he eats enough (actually now it’s making sure he doesn’t eat everything in the house), or entertaining him all day. Obviously I could languish in sadness that I can’t cuddle that sweet blond baby anymore. But seeing him becoming his own person reminds me that changes don’t have to be bad.
A tree might shed its fruit or leaves each year, but the next year (we hope) it grows back stronger, fuller, with more delicious fruit.
No longer can I do a double pirouette. But I haven’t stopped dancing. I’m learning that I can’t do everything in my power to protect my kids, but my small actions can pave a way forward, and show my kids that I’m doing what I can for their futures. The world is changing. We are changing. It’s cliche, but that’s all that’s guaranteed in this life. These changes can make us sad, they can paralyze us, or they guide us toward how to take the next step toward living a meaningful life.
Today, on this summer solstice, another marker of change, I’m choosing to embrace the joy of graduations as a reminder that a next phase can be considered a promotion.
Congratulations to all of you celebrating change today. I hope you tend to yourselves with all this excess sunshine.
~Michele