January 2

January 2

Captain’s Log

Star date: January 2, 2026

Another Christmas and New Year have gone by and I just watched my heart drive away, taking another tiny piece of me with him. This happens every time my son visits and then head home. He’s may only son, so, the ache feels painfully deep.

I woke up late this morning, thinking I’d missed him leaving and ready to cut my husband’s head off for not waking me, but her was still home.

Home. A word with so much meaning and depth. It means something different and the same to everyone. It’s a house, a town, a state or country, and a person, and family or group of people that are your clan. And this morning I watched my tears hit the floor as he hugged me goodbye. He hugged me twice. The first time in goodbye, I’ll see you soon, and the second in love as he watched the tears fill my red eyes. They fall as I write now. He left home.

I need to remember that this is his home, yes. It always will be, but he now has a home of his home. And in the same way his father and I feel when returning home from vacation, he longs for his own bed, his sovereignty, and the things that he has that make his home, his.

It’s a feeling too. A place of comfort, of familiarity and peace. We all long for it, no matter when or how.

He’s only moved away from home recently, to begin his career. At nineteen when he was hired a month before graduation, we had only two weeks to get used to the idea and get him packed up to move one state away from us. I never really thought he would be even that far from us. But it was his dream, job and location and who were we to interfere. He had some fears, I’m sure, but never voiced them. He was more excited about being on his own and making his way.

That was last January. And now, I found myself, yet again, letting him go and watching as he drove off.

I didn’t cry that time. I think it had not quite hit me. His father drove out with him and got him situated in his apartment. He stocked his pantry, put all his furniture together and made sure he had anything and everything we might have forgotten when we purchased everything. This time, however, I cried and cried and cried. Not constantly, but intermittently, every time i thought of him, every time I said his name. I cried when I made the bed he slept in and smelled his pillows for the scent that is exclusively him. Moms know what I mean. Even as babies, our children have a smell that is their own. All the animal kingdom has it. Humans included if they pay attention.

I cried as I remembered all the times we fought over the mess in his room. And he was messy while he was here this time, too. I miss those days, really I do. Because now, I don’t have them.

I don’t hear him stomping his heel heavy steps, through the house. I don’t know he’s about to come in the door after work, or school, or swim practice. I don’t get to see him, every day even if it’s only as he leaves the house or comes in and hides himself in his room, playing games. It’s a lot of I don’ts.

Yes, I do get to speak with him, daily, and more than once, because he calls mom all the time. We have become so much closer now that he understands his father’s and my insanity raising him. He knows now everything we did for him and for him to have a good life.

And we are proud. He is an upstanding and conscientious man. He works hard and has the kind of integrity, most parents want in their children. He is perfect to us, even in his imperfections.

We will see him soon, because I don’t think, no I know, I cannot go more than a couple months, not seeing him. But it still left me grieving as he drove off. It is not a comfort despite what people would have you believe. Moms still ache for her children. I am no different.

So, when he left, his dad looked at my face and understood. This was going to be a tough day for me. I need to lament and grieve my loss again, and privately. Grief is so personal to me that I don’t share it. Not with anyone. It’s precious. It’s so intimately mine, that I can’t talk to anyone else about it. Even now as, I share this with you, I keep the most loved parts of my grief away from prying eyes. My husband knows this about me and respects my space. So when I said I needed to write it out, he smiled and said he knew I’d want to spill my heart into my poetry. I did that. All afternoon. And now I sit here, shedding another layer, in prose.

Writing is cathartic, and it is such a blessed thing to me. I can’t imagine a day without it. Having taken it back up when my son moved, It keeps my mind distracted from the aloneness of empty nesting. My writing and art have done that for me, unlike any other activity.

I had gone almost thirty years without typing a word or picking up a pencil or brush, and now I can’t breathe without it. I don’t think it would be fair or just to lose a son and a passion in the same lifetime. I haven’t lost my son, I know, but you get what I mean.

So, why am I writing this all out? Because I need to. I need to let the sorrow bleed out of me. And it already feels better. With each passing hour I feel more okay. I write this for other moms, who will in their time, be saying goodbye to their sons or daughters. So, that in some small way, it might remind them, then, that they can get through it and distract themselves from the sadness, quiet the screaming silence, and move to another day. One moment at a time.

One breath at a time.

Until I see my baby again, I’ll be clinging to every memory, every word I can remember of our conversations, and every phone call or video chat, as he moves through a grocery store, asking me what he should get to make this or that. I relish those moments, every single one.

Moms, hug your little ones, even if they pissed you off, made you cry, or just plain ignored you. One day, you’ll sit craving and begging for the next hug, kiss, or second with them at home with you.