The escalators in Dublin airport

Rosie left again this morning. This time for a year rather than three months. My heart aches and my eyes sting, with no time to recover from the last salty falling before the next comes. God, I love her. And love hurts. And this Universal truth lands in me like a cartoon drawing of a piano falling out a second story window onto the unsuspecting me, walking below. I had tried to avoid this particular flavour of pain, having watched so many mothers before me, being left with nothing when their children left, by building a wonderful life for myself. And I did, I really did. But time can be filled, and filled with connection and depth but there is no protection against losing her particular flavour of heart, of humour, of vitality. How foolish I was to think it was possible to avoid this.

Of course, I was ready for her to leave because I am tired of mothering, particularly teenage adults. That takes a lot of energy and I have my own heart and desires to invest in. I thought that too, was protection against the pain. Nope. I think there’s no protection against the pain of real love. Harsh.

So now, I am in their life transitions. They go, they come back and they go again. And it is my job to stay steady in it all, to be the sounding board as they navigate their own ideas, desires and adventures. This is what keeps me standing, their unknown need for me to be a rock. This stops me slipping to the floor, landing with my whole body and settling there until my heart finds its regular beat again and I can stand.

Now, as I sit here with a warm cup in my hand, pulling myself back from vacant eyes, only for them to fill with tears again, is the time for that collapse. It feels like another rite of passage. Another one. To let go of your children. To love that deeply, that wholly. Holy love. And then to watch it as it disappears up the escalators of Dublin airport. Heartbreak. But her tears at the bottom of those very escalators, on my shoulder were like medicine. Medicine just for me. As if somehow, they could drip down and soothe my breaking heart.

Although my building of a life could not protect me from this pain, what it offers me is other beautiful women who have loved deeply and lost, who can offer me a grandmother's embrace, a shoulder to wet with my tears. There is something about this invisible weaving of understanding that can really catch me when I fall. So, if it feels like that is all I have, how lucky am I?

Yes, Time heals, and maybe all it will take is 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, who knows. But I have no doubt that Time carries with it new bruises, love and new bruises. And for that, there is no protection either. So, in the meantime I will love and cry and dance and play and work and cry some more.