The Magic of Mothers & Daughters
Sue Sanders
My thoughts are free to go anywhere, but it's surprising how often they head in your direction.
The green backpack Elizabeth was stuffing with clothes for summer camp was almost bigger than she was. At ten, my daughter would soon be off to sleep-away camp for the first time. As she placed Stripey, her stuffed tiger, on top and snapped the bag shut, there were plenty of emotions swirling around the room: nervousness, agitation, the effects of insomnia.
And that was just me.
It was her first time away from home and I worried that she wouldn't make friends or that she'd be homesick and cry herself to sleep each night. But two days later, driving through Vermont's lush green hills on the way to camp, Elizabeth was her usual chattering self. She was apprehensive about the upcoming swimming test, but excited to get there, unpack and meet new friends. After my husband Jeff and I helped lug her backpack and duffle bag up the hill to her cabin we strung mosquito netting, in an intricate cat's cradle of cord, over her top pine bunk. As we sweated and grimaced, Elizabeth introduced herself to a new friend, dug her bathing suit out of her duffle bag, and trotted off to the bathroom to change. The girls skipped together to the lake for their swimming tests, leaving two sets of nervous parents struggling with their children's bunks. When the girls returned, jabbering to each other nonstop, it was almost as if we'd become invisible. Jeff and I kissed Elizabeth goodbye and left. I was relieved she seemed so happy.
For the first time, we began to think about life without a kid, and what we would do for the next two weeks. It was our first extended time alone (we met when Elizabeth was four) and the possibilities seemed endless. Jeff started the car and as we bumped along the gravel road away from camp, I was elated—sending her to camp was the right thing to do. Jeff reached over, rubbed my back and smiled. But something still felt slightly off-kilter.
The first night, when I walked by Elizabeth's room, I got an uncomfortable feeling that some part of our lives was missing—like a phantom limb, something that should be there but isn't. I peered in, almost expecting to see her sprawled under her comforter, the dog curled into a crescent at her feet. But her bed was empty. Even the dog avoided the room, as if staying in Elizabeth's room without her was as wrong as jumping onto the sofa.
The next evening, Elizabeth haunted our first dinner date, too. Instead of gazing dreamily into each other's eyes, we took turns guessing what she might be doing at that very moment. And our conjecture transformed into my worry. Had she made any friends? Was she homesick? Were any girls bullying her? I had flashbacks to my preadolescence and my mind swarmed with the faces of girls who'd taunted me. Jeff assured me that I was fretting for nothing—my childhood was my issue, better left to a discussion with my therapist than making myself nuts over my daughter's imaginary tormentors. He reminded me of how she was when we'd left her at camp—ecstatic with a new friend. Surely, not that much had changed in twenty-four hours.
After a few days, we settled into our new, child-free routine and started to enjoy ourselves—until we received our first postcard. In careful squiggles on a pre-stamped, pre-addressed postcard Elizabeth wrote, "I'm having fun. I'm doing distance swimming. I've had no mail. Please send letters." A picture of a sad face was etched next to the map she'd drawn of the lake and her distance-swimming route. A week before she left, I'd posted two letters so she'd have a couple of notes from home waiting for her. They probably just hadn't arrived yet.
A few days later we stopped at the mailbox late at night, returning from a date in the city. Flipping through the catalogs and bills, there was another card: "I like camp. Please send mail. I'm the only person who didn't get any mail." Next to the note was a picture of a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and a stamp. Underneath was a caption: "0 mail."
I started to panic. Where was her mail? Was something insidious going on? Was it a plot to keep mail from her? A mean girl in charge of mail duty, purposefully hiding letters from our daughter? Had a bomb obliterated the quaint Vermont post office? I was obviously losing my mind. But she should have received at least a few letters by now. Her dad and I had mailed four or five. Her grandparents had sent mail and a friend had mailed her a postcard. Why had she received "0 mail?" It was too late to call the camp, so I shot off a quick e-mail to the camp administrator, crawled into bed and slept fitfully.
Early the next morning the camp director called. It was Saturday and the office was closed, but she said she'd checked with Elizabeth's counselor who said our daughter was happy. The director said she would contact the office Monday morning when it opened to see what had happened to Elizabeth's mail.
Despite the director's reassurances, I couldn't stop worrying that Elizabeth was really miserable at camp. It's not that I'm usually a neurotic, overprotective parent. Sure, when Elizabeth was a newborn I made my parents scrub their hands before they held her, but by the time she was thirteen months old I was picking up the goldfish crackers she'd dropped in the sandbox, dusting them off, and handing them back to her. At three, she skipped happily off to preschool—and I spied on her through the classroom's window for only the first few days. She was pretty well adjusted and I liked to think that I was, too. But somehow the missing letters had turned me into Crazy Mom, envisioning anything—and everything—that might possibly go wrong.
Finally Monday arrived. The post office was open. The village director called and said she'd talked to Elizabeth. She had finally received the mail, and, most importantly, had been having a blast all along. Somehow her cards to us had crossed paths with ours to her. When I heard this, I realized that even though we had sent Elizabeth to camp to learn about herself, I was the one who needed to learn ... about letting go. Subconsciously, I was still longing for the tiny baby who depended on me for all her needs, but my daughter was growing up. And sooner, rather than later, she's going to have a life without me.
Jeff and I enjoyed our last week alone.
When the final day of camp arrived, we drove up, parked the car and hiked up the hill to Elizabeth's village. She actually looked taller, more poised and more sure of herself. "May I show you around my camp?" she asked, and without waiting for our answer, took our hands to show us around and then begged, "Can I come back next year—please?"
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