In just two weeks Marilyn Weingard’s son Steven is leaving to help a nation at war. Here’s how she made peace with his decision.
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You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
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In two weeks my son and I will take a ride to the airport together. It will be a very hard ride. I will drop him off at an international airline, bound for Tel Aviv. For the first time in our lives together, I will not know when I will see my son again.
Truth is, we never know when we will see our children again. We just think we do.
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Truth is, we never know when we will see our children again. We just think we do. Having a plan to see them later on that day, or the next time they are scheduled to come home from college for Thanksgiving, is just that, a plan. This time I will not have a plan, because Steven, my first born is moving to Israel. By November, he will have his assignment in the Israeli Army.
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Separations between parent and child are full of feelings. Rarely are they spoken about or expressed honestly. Early on, it seemed I was the one craving time away. Kindergarten was a cause to celebrate for me and a challenge for Steven. Years later, his first experience at sleep away camp resulted in his falling into my arms upon return, with such force and emotion, that he stepped on my foot and broke my toe.
I have never taken the enormity of the bond between my son and me for granted. If you are lucky enough to have such mutually rewarding closeness, you realize what a gift it is. Steven has always been the type of person who makes you feel he wants and values your guidance. Our exchanges are based on honesty, mutual respect, and laughter.
I listened to a 22-year-old man, who had become his own person with opinions and desires separate from mine.
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When Steven told me he wanted to join the Israeli Army, I was not laughing. I was horrified. I am a pacifist and it was shocking to hear this from my most sensitive child. I listened to his desire to help a country he feels an allegiance with, a country that took in our ancestors during a dark time in our history. Most importantly, I listened to a 22-year-old man, who had become his own person with opinions and desires separate from mine. I could hear the separation taking place with each conversation and each time a voice inside me whispered ‘let go.’
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The letting go is of my own silent expectations of the ‘how,’ ‘where,’ and ‘with whom’ my grown child will create an authentic life. The journey of raising my son to become an independent thinker, a soul who cares deeply about others and who can leave home to make his own way in this world, has already been a success. That journey includes being able to verbalize all the ambivalence that accompanies separation, that we are both struggling with. It turns out, even when he and I do not agree on major life choices, we can find our bond in honesty, respect, laughter, and love.
I will leave him with the only words that can attempt to do a moment between a parent and child even a modicum of justice … YOU ARE SO LOVED.
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In two weeks, when Steven and I take that ride to the airport, we will feel many things, but we will be in it together. When I hug him, press my chest against his, the very same way I did the first time I held him, I will feel the enormity of everything we have shared up until now. I will embrace the unlimited possibilities of everything we will share in the future. I will leave him with the only words that can attempt to do a moment between a parent and child even a modicum of justice … YOU ARE SO LOVED.
Though it seems impossible to conceive, somehow, in our sacred space, where all I am aware of is the generosity, infallibility, and unimaginable resilience of my human heart … somehow, from that space, I will let my son go.
Photo—Aero Icarus/Flickr
Ms. Weingard, I must say this article suggests to me that you’re probably very good at your job as a social worker — someone who helps people mentally and emotionally adapt and cope with reality. You help people figure out how to be OK with things that aren’t OK. Here you show us how you’ve managed to make it OK for yourself that your son, with all the scant wisdom of his 22 (entire!) years, all juiced up on fatuous religious delusìon and ginned-up jingoism, and perhaps desperate to prove he’s a real man, is gonna fly halfway around the… Read more »
Nicole. Are you thinking the IDF is so precise they’ve been able to avoid kiling terrorists altogehter?
Nicely written. How about some balance from GMP and we hear about a Palestinian parent from Gaza? Also, I’m not sure that ‘war’ is a correct term for what’s happening over there at the moment when we’re only seeing civilian deaths.
And he will take part in the killing of innocent civilians???? There’s nothing good about enlisting in that army unless you have the power to change their policies with use of explosives near civilians.
US economy survives off ensuring no other nation becomes stronger than itself.
US had preditermined plans to go to war with Great Britain in WW2 starting with an invasion of Canada.
It happly did business with Nazi Germany until it could ignore the truth no longer.
The US has a long history of selling arms to its enemys and then going to war with them.
It preys on its citizens finacial insecurity with ‘careers’ in the military.
This was such a gift, and mirrors what may or may not be in my own future. You spoke my feelings perfectly concerning my own 22 year old son. Thank you. Gorgeous.
This is a deeply emotional article written by an amazing woman. I cried when I read it. We have our children for such a short time and then we must let them fly. It is so hard to pinpoint the exact moment when their not being able to let go of us becomes our difficulty in letting go of them. Having raised 3 sons of my own I so relate. Steven sounds like an amazing young man too.