Thanksgiving Transitions: From Busy Kitchens to Empty Nest

When my kids were little, we had an annual Thanksgiving cooking contest. Each year, we picked an ingredient for our competitive dish. Despite its lack of popularity, the mushroom was always selected.

Initially, I judged. As kids grew, we developed a more democratic process.  There were several winning categories – healthiest mushroom, most innovative mushroom, and best tasting mushroom. My favorite to judge (though not to eat) was the most innovative mushroom. It was an exciting and busy time, working side-by-side in our small kitchen on our signature mushroom dishes.

How times change.

Today, my sons are adults. I can no longer assume that any holiday will be spent together.  They are doing what I always hoped for and worked hard to achieve - they are “adulting.”   I can mentor, lend support, and offer encouragement, but ultimately, their futures are up to their own decisions, actions, and inactions.

I am incredibly proud of them and of myself for raising two wonderful men. Despite my pride, I still tear thinking of Thanksgiving stuffed mushrooms.

I filled my first few months empty nesting keeping busy with things I liked or didn’t like. The point was to be busy. To not reflect, think, or stand still. To try new things. To have new, shiny experiences – even if I had my doubts going into them. Didn’t work. I was just busy.

I have finally come to accept what I already knew - what everyone says - which is that empty nesting for most starts with grief.

I know many exuberant solo parents – they are focusing on their careers, reading books – maybe writing one, taking trips, exploring new hobbies, and dating. I desperately want to be there with them, but I have not yet arrived. Holidays exacerbate my feelings.

I belong to a Facebook group of thousands of solo mom empty nesters. Many of those moms are part of the exuberant camp, and I am happy for them. At least as many are in the grief camp.  I am somewhere in between.

Grief is a process that cannot be rushed. But, if we can allow ourselves to live through it, to really feel and experience grief, there is so much joy waiting for us once we can sever the “Then” from the “Now”.

After my mom passed, I read her poem the Progress of Grief repeatedly for months, until I finally felt like I had entered the next phase of my life. I am now reading it again and share it with you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

THE PROGRESS OF GRIEF by Jane P. Moreland

 Grief is at first private, fallen acorns

held tightly within lacquered shells,

stone-hard pears and pomegranates

that cannot release sweet tears.

It becomes the somber pigeon

released every dawn and home by dusk

to find you in umber shade of live oak,

follow your escape through scars

into the private hollow that could split

like your heart, spill tears like rain

to run widening through shallows

and remembered crevices, abrade

your inner landscape, wash you

in cold currents over deep floors and out

into sunlight, where you find yourself

crossing fields on a murky fast canal

that is the bold stroke across canvas

that severs then from now, life as absolute

before from the blurry gold becoming.