Cicada Shells

5/21/2023

How is it that parents reinvent themselves as complete strangers when they are grandparents? I used to think that they were so exhausted raising us that they became permissive because they just didn’t have the energy to bother.  And that is probably part of it, but now that I’m at Midfield, I think maybe it’s a feeling of satisfaction (possibly relief) at having raised their kids and realizing all the stress and pressure of parenting is folly and finally getting a chance to enjoy things for a change.

My mom was a doting Mamaw.  Thanks to my nephews, she was seasoned in the role by the time my son was born and she was truly awesome to him. She was his caregiver while I worked and I could not have juggled it all without her.  But she was different as a Mamaw than she was as a mom. She had suggestions, not rules. I think she retired the word “no” after my sisters and I grew up. Once, my son scribbled in ink all over her couch. I flipped! But she didn’t get upset at all. This stranger in the house I grew up in said it didn’t matter; Resolve would take it right out. I wasn’t even allowed in that room when I was little, let alone scribbling on the couch while in there! Whenever I scolded mom for allowing my son to run wild she would just wink at him and give him a hug. Less stress; more enjoying life.

Even when she was going to the hospital to get chemotherapy and radiation, she would come out the doors with a giant smile and say, “There’s my little boy!” and he would run and hug her legs. He was only three years old, so her legs were all he could reach. And those legs were like home base for him. Safe. Accepting. Anything goes; naughty included.

My son was fascinated by cicadas. He loved pulling those crispy shells off of the trees and inspecting all the little details of the bug that used to live in it. One time, he put one of those creepy things in mom’s hand. She hated it! It gave her serious willies. She scrunched her face up, closed her eyes tight, and squirmed in her chair- but she still held it because he gave it to her. I told her to just drop it but she refused because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings by throwing down what he gave her. She would do anything for him.  His devoted Mamaw, through and through.

How I wish his time with her lasted forever. It should have. Really. It should have. But it didn’t. Right before Christmas, when he was three, she died. He didn’t know what dead meant. And Mamaws don’t get dead. Three year olds need them. But the cancer had spread to her brain and suddenly, like the cicada, only her shell was left. We cried over her shell and left it under a tent in a box in a big windy yard. The place for Mamaw shells.

I was devastated. I had lost my dad 8 years earlier and was suddenly an adult orphan. My son had no Mamaw.  The cornerstone of the family was gone. I was lost, sad and angry at God. I didn’t want her to die. We needed her. It was then that God revealed to me that grief is the valley of the shadow of death.  And, oh, that valley was so difficult. Some days we just survived. But we did so together- loving each other more through the sadness. I have always loved my son with everything within me, but somehow the love grew deeper. We came up with things that were just ours to share, like scavenger walk bingo, metro park programs, upside down days eating under the kitchen table with ketchup under the fries instead of on top, and geocaching. Day by day, memory by memory, we moved forward. I cherish all the  the little things we’ve done together. I cherish my son the most.

Losing my mom and his Mamaw was a gigantic crater sized lemon in our lives, but it also has brought us joy. “Loss lemons” remind us to hold the people we love super close and appreciate each moment before the shell goes empty.