Julie, this is such a precise portrait of the strange work of preparing for a child’s leaving: saying “I can’t wait” while grief quietly bleeds into everything, planning a speech that may be too tender to survive delivery, and somehow translating love into weeding, pruning, planting, and mulching. The garden works beautifully here because it holds the whole emotional mess without explaining it too neatly: pride, separation, gratitude, neighbor judgment, old stories, and the desire to make a place beautiful before someone steps out of it. I especially appreciated the honesty of saving the sadness for later, because that feels true to the way parents sometimes keep functioning until the departure finally gives them permission to feel what has been gathering. Grateful for the humor, ache, and wild specificity in this.
Thank you for not just reading but for leaving such a kind and thoughtful comment. It is the sweetest of the bittersweet moments of parenting. It’s the culmination of our greatest work—sending the bird out of the nest. So much pride and fear all at once.
Julie, “the sweetest of the bittersweet” feels exactly right for this kind of parenting moment. Sending the bird out of the nest carries so much at once: pride in who they have become, fear over what you can no longer manage for them, and the ache of realizing that love has done its work partly by preparing them to go. Your garden gave all of that feeling somewhere to live, which is why the piece stayed with me. Thank you for letting readers stand inside that beautiful, difficult mixture of pride, fear, gratitude, and release.
I love the overgrown look, too. It breaks my heart the way our landlords seem to be at war with the tropical plants and trees trying to overtake our house.
My heart goes out to you, Julie! Every time you write about your relationship with Karli, I am in awe. The mother-daughter friendship and bond you have feels magical and otherworldly to me. ❤️
I am crying right now because you brought it all back for me.
I didn’t give the speech. The speech I thought about and crafted in my head for weeks leading up to Nate’s grad party last June. When the day arrived, I couldn’t find it in me to say it because all the sad would jumble out with it.
But I really wish I said it. Even if I would have been a sad sop up there, it would have been beautiful. Just like your garden. Messy and wild and true.
I bet you will say yours. ✨
I love the way you write about you & Karli. There’s no way you messed her up too much 😉- she’s going to put art out in the world and teach others how to do that. GAWD - do we need more of that!
And I very much love the spooky synchronous way we both wrote about telling the person the thing this week ❤️❤️
Julie, this is such a precise portrait of the strange work of preparing for a child’s leaving: saying “I can’t wait” while grief quietly bleeds into everything, planning a speech that may be too tender to survive delivery, and somehow translating love into weeding, pruning, planting, and mulching. The garden works beautifully here because it holds the whole emotional mess without explaining it too neatly: pride, separation, gratitude, neighbor judgment, old stories, and the desire to make a place beautiful before someone steps out of it. I especially appreciated the honesty of saving the sadness for later, because that feels true to the way parents sometimes keep functioning until the departure finally gives them permission to feel what has been gathering. Grateful for the humor, ache, and wild specificity in this.
Thank you for not just reading but for leaving such a kind and thoughtful comment. It is the sweetest of the bittersweet moments of parenting. It’s the culmination of our greatest work—sending the bird out of the nest. So much pride and fear all at once.
Julie, “the sweetest of the bittersweet” feels exactly right for this kind of parenting moment. Sending the bird out of the nest carries so much at once: pride in who they have become, fear over what you can no longer manage for them, and the ache of realizing that love has done its work partly by preparing them to go. Your garden gave all of that feeling somewhere to live, which is why the piece stayed with me. Thank you for letting readers stand inside that beautiful, difficult mixture of pride, fear, gratitude, and release.
I love the overgrown look, too. It breaks my heart the way our landlords seem to be at war with the tropical plants and trees trying to overtake our house.
My heart goes out to you, Julie! Every time you write about your relationship with Karli, I am in awe. The mother-daughter friendship and bond you have feels magical and otherworldly to me. ❤️
I am crying right now because you brought it all back for me.
I didn’t give the speech. The speech I thought about and crafted in my head for weeks leading up to Nate’s grad party last June. When the day arrived, I couldn’t find it in me to say it because all the sad would jumble out with it.
But I really wish I said it. Even if I would have been a sad sop up there, it would have been beautiful. Just like your garden. Messy and wild and true.
I bet you will say yours. ✨
I love the way you write about you & Karli. There’s no way you messed her up too much 😉- she’s going to put art out in the world and teach others how to do that. GAWD - do we need more of that!
And I very much love the spooky synchronous way we both wrote about telling the person the thing this week ❤️❤️
The amount of unspoken words that live inside my head…
Now that you’ve bet that I will give the speech, I might just have to give the speech. You might have that kind of power, Allison.
I mean, if the garden turns out ugly and unsatisfactory, I kind of feel like I have to give a speech now.