Today I took my son to the airport and said good bye.
This was the hardest thing I had to do. I know we have not had the best relationship, and yeah, I've made some crappy mistakes when it came to raising him which I still get flack over with constant reminders of those mistakes on occasion. However, I know that my son and I have talked about my mistakes and he forgave me for the poor choices I've made and how they affected him, and he said he was glad those things happened or he wouldn't be going in the direction he's going now and he never would have met the people who helped get him to this point in his life. He said he wouldn't change a thing. We talked in the car yesterday about how he wondered if I hadn't moved out here and things had been different, he knows he would be in some sort of music field but maybe not doing what he's doing now. We talked about a bunch of things. We got him a cake yesterday, triple chocolate with white chocolate shavings on top and I took him to walmart last night for some cd's he could burn music on to listen to on the plane. He said good night to me before he went to bed and went upstairs.
Then, this morning, it hit me.
Like a ton of bricks, as we were getting the children's jackets and shoes and he is standing by the living room window I walked over to him and smiled and then I said "okay I'm going to hug you now and then I'm going to cry." He hugged me with his right arm and I put my head into his shoulder and the tears came flowing. Then I tried to laugh and told him "okay, I'm now going to continue crying and then I'm going to laugh." He snickered. I told him "I love you Jared." He said "i love you too mom." Then I grabbed his other arm and threw it around me and he hugged me more. I just sobbed and hugged him for what seemed like not enough time. I know he's not a "touchy/feely/huggy" type guy, but he let his mother hug him and get all sappy on him. For that I am grateful.
I kissed his head and told him to be safe.
I gave him a Christmas tree pen with little fuzzies and a light up tree on the top and told him to use that to write all his songs.
He's a man now. All grown up and I've let him go, as hard as it was. I drove him to the airport and hugged him one more time and he got out of the van, grabbed his backpack, and his suitcase gave the kids a high five, hugged his sister, grabbed his guitar and looked at me, I saw that look as though he was thinking "I'm gonna miss you", he said he loved me again and shut the door and walked away.
I sat there in the car and watched him walk away I followed him until the automatic doors opened... and he was gone....just like that.