Like a Missing Limb

I dropped my daughter at college four days ago. While I was gone, my partner tested positive for COVID so when I came home I had to stay in my daughter’s bedroom in the basement.

It was strangely comforting. My friends have been worried about how I would fare in this moment of change. I think most of them thought I’d fall apart when my only daughter left home. I’ve always been very attached to my daughter, deeply connected to my role as a mother. 

In the last couple of days, good friends and concerned family members have reached out, “How are you doing?” they call and text. 

“Fine?,” I respond, not quite sure. It feels like my brain is scrambled. I know something is missing, but I’m not sure what it is. I wonder if this is what is like to have a missing limb. I have no immediately detectable pain, but there is a heightened awareness; something is definitely missing.

“How do I feel?,” I ask myself as I make my ten-day COVID home in my absent daughter’s room, tidying her bed and putting away the last load of laundry she did before she left for college.

I miss my daughter, but I’m also excited for her. I get several texts a day of the meals she’s eating, new friends and the beautiful scenery she’s surrounded by. She’s around, but she’s gone.

I’m happy that my daughter chose a school far away. I’m thrilled about the adventures and challenges in front of her. In the short time she’s been gone, all signs point to the fact that she is ready to be on her own. “You’ve done a good job,” one friend tells me, “she’s ready for this.” I take comfort in this sentiment and I trust that my daughter is in the right place right now. But in her absence, something isn’t right. 

It’s not so much that I miss my daughter as that I am confused about who I am without her. This afternoon I went to the grocery and passed by the Kombucha she loves so much. “I won’t need that for a few months,” I thought to myself as I robotically found myself in that aisle. Later in the afternoon, my partner and I went for a walk. When we came in, I looked at the door, making a note to keep it unlocked because my daughter would be coming home soon. 

“Oh wait,” I said to my partner, “she’s not coming home.” The phantom daughter, lurking everywhere but nowhere to be found. A few hours later, my partner ordered pizza. When it arrived, I thought the delivery driver had it wrong. “You ordered two pizzas?” I hollered out to my partner on the porch. She had forgotten again that our daughter wouldn’t be home for dinner.

Is this how the mother bird feels where her baby flies out of the nest? Bye-bye baby bird….. I hope I see you again soon. Once a bird can fly, she is safer out in the world where she has mobility, a way to escape the predators that would swallow her whole when sitting unprotected in a nest.

But we’re not birds. I don’t see my baby as safer out in the world. I spent eighteen years protecting her and now she’s out there. I can’t see her. I can’t feel her. I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing or how she feels or if she’s sad or lonely or hungry or if her sheets are dirty or if she packed warm enough socks for snow. 

I wonder if the mother bird feels this way when her chicks first leave. There’s a delicate period when the chicks first learn to fly. Though they are strong enough to leave the nest, their wing and tail feathers aren’t fully developed and they are still vulnerable for a short period. 

It’s only been four days since I flew across the country with my little bird and dropped her into a new nest. Like the new-flying chicks, she too is developing her strength and independence. She’s learning to fly far away from her mother. 

It really does feel like I’m missing a limb right now. This is hard and I’m not really myself. But thinking of my daughter in her new home, imagining her learning to fly on her own is a beautiful vision, a wonderful distraction. My nest may be empty, but my heart is full.