23 Jun Empty Nesting

By Beth Livingston

Dear Rebecca,

My name is Beth Livingston. I am an artist, a Paralympic athlete, a mother of two and a fledgeling writer. 🙂 Empty Nesting is an essay I wrote last fall after my children had left home for school, looking back at the job of being a mother; requiring one to love and then to let go. Included are photos of our trip down the Yellowstone river to supplement my essay if needed. Also, this photo is of my latest work entitled Nest. It is an autobiographical assemblage, a memoir and an homage to motherhood. I would be honored if you would give it a read, and perhaps you might consider it worthy of including in your magazine.

Empty Nesting

My son Parker was born 18 years ago. My daughter Lila followed three years later. I had children despite my fear of the difficulties that would arise raising them from a wheelchair. I quickly adapted to the challenge of loading and unloading sleeping children from car seats and pushing a full grocery cart top-loaded with a fussy baby in an infant carrier I couldn’t see over, trailed by a busy-bodied toddler in a bustling grocery store. My daily struggles became second nature.

Out of necessity, I taught my children to be self-sufficient. I have seen my friends with out physical limitations default to the parenting strategy of completing simple tasks “the fast way” by doing it themselves. But when you are in a wheelchair, and you can’t reach a cup or a bowl from the shelves in a traditional kitchen, you teach your toddler how to climb from a chair (most often standing on top of you in your chair) to the countertop and bring the dish down from the cabinet themselves. This became the operating system of necessity: it was the only way to get breakfast and the day started.

Each year brought new lessons to teach my children about how to navigate the world around them. I did not want them to be excluded from childhood experiences because of my limitations. So, they learned to climb the ladder to the slide at the playground without me shadowing them to keep them from harm. Hesitating at the top and realizing that they had made it, my children would squeal with glee on the way down. The firm knowledge that they could do things on their own was being cemented like a handprint in mortar. These were the years that I learned to sit back and supervise as Parker and Lila created childhood adventures and attempted “first ascents.”

Over time I accepted that it was more important to let my children go, than to hold them close. The satisfaction of self achievement, and the yearning to “do-by- myself”– the early childhood mantra– was evident and growing. My children were more competent in the tasks of daily living than almost any of their friends because of their need to problem solve on their own. I don’t say this with any measure of veiled superiority. Their skill set was a by-product and perhaps even a side benefit of the sink or swim childhood survival manual they had been issued. There were many times when due to my disability I was reduced to a frustrated observer of my children struggling and instances where I could only embrace their achievements at arms length. These are heartbreaking moments to experience when parenting from a wheelchair.

When Parker was seven, he wanted to hike the “M”, a trail frequented by hikers that we passed on our way to and from our home in the Bridger Mountains outside Bozeman, Montana. Every day, he asked if he could climb the “M.” He was obsessed. I felt miserable that I couldn’t fulfill his seemingly simple request to hike the “M” with him myself. I cursed my disability. I felt guilty that he would be denied this opportunity for exploration and adventure. I felt like I wasn’t measuring up as a mother.

Thinking my way around his request, I devised a plan. I told Parker that he could hike the “M”, but that he would have to do it alone, with our obedient dog Norton in tow. I had two- way radios that we used to coordinate when we went skiing, and I had binoculars to monitor his ascent. I told him that he could attempt to summit the M, if he used the radio to keep in contact. I found a couple of hikers at the beginning of the trail, and asked if they would be willing to keep an eye on him, to which they readily agreed.

The trail to the top was a simple but steep hike straight up about one mile from the parking lot. It would constitute a reasonable work out for an adult, but a real expedition for a young child hiking alone with his dog. Parker reveled in the idea that he would finally get to see what it looked like at the very top. I had a cell phone to call from the car should there be an emergency, and said farewell to my pint- sized Edmund Hillary.

As I watched Parker navigate the trail upwards, I felt a mixture of relief that my son was finally able do something that he really wanted to do combined with worry that I was being irresponsible in letting him go alone. In the end I saw it as my job to let him go. Just because I couldn’t make the hike didn’t mean that he shouldn’t either. Increasingly as my kids got older, there were times where our worlds would splinter. Parker and Lila became interested in and capable of doing things I could not. I encouraged them to grab these opportunities whenever they had the chance. In Parker’s case, on this day to paraphrase a Nancy Sinatra song, “his boots were made for walkin,” and he began the scramble up hill in his knee high black Wellie boots.

There came a point where I could see Parker making no more upward progress. He sat down and rested. I worried at that moment that he wouldn’t have the energy to come back down, and when I attempted to reach him on the radio, I realized that my battery was dying and my radio was not sending any message. Thankfully, he slowly made his way back to the car. Parker did not make it to the stone outcropping “M”, marker that represents the M of Montana State University. Apparently it was farther than either of us, who had never been to the top had envisioned. Despite the results he returned delighted that he had been allowed the opportunity to make a go of it, even though he failed to summit. He proudly assured me he would make it all the way next time. This was just the beginning of helping my children make plans, and letting them run with them.

My kids are now both leaving home for school in the fall, and I will be alone. Looking down the barrel towards an empty nest, I worry that I did not share enough adventures like the “M” with my kids while I had the time. I am melancholy that my disability has ghosted me, excluding me from many shared experiences that would have kept us more connected. I have said yes to many trips for Parker and Lila with other friends’ families knowing that they could provide wild Montana moments I could not. But I wonder if I have missed something, and sold out my opportunity to build the memories that define the word family. Perhaps I should have been more selfish and kept them closer.

I have forced myself to revisit my perspective this summer. I am saddened at how in hind-sight; I have marginalized the good in my life with my kids. I have been preparing for the inevitability of their leaving the nest for years. The aim was for them to be confident and self assured when the time came. In the process, I have sacrificed time with them as a means to that end. Everyone makes sacrifices for their children. My life is no different. Looking back, I want to feel grateful rather than regretful. I want to believe that I still have the prospect of making memories.

It turns out we do get a chance. Now that Parker and Lila are older and stronger, we can venture out into the wild with greater ease. So, when friends visiting from British Columbia suggest a spontaneous overnight trip on The Yellowstone River this July, I answer with a resounding “heck, yeah”, and begin planning an impromptu summer adventure. We manage to corral the mass of gear needed, and by day’s end, we are putting our flotilla of three tandem kayaks on the river setting memories in motion.

The broad Yellowstone is flowing downstream, replacing obstacles with opportunities. Looming vistas of the Absaroka Mountains do not require sturdy legs for viewing. To marvel at Pelicans swooping off the water does not ask that you can fly. Even though I merely sit on the sandy island where we camp for the night with out a means to maneuver, I am still changed by this place. Every venture into the wilderness changes me. I hope to be a thousand different people in my lifetime. As I have been preparing my children to become independent young adults, I have been readying myself for the next chapter in my life with them gone.

The river breeze whispers inaudibly. Sun paints alpine-glow over the mountains rising at our backs. I press the heat of the campfire against my hands for comfort. Marshmallows brown on crackling sticks in the embers. A long day of planning ends and I am sleepy. I lie on the ground next to my children knowing that they will soon migrate to more fertile ground. Yet, I am content in knowing that like the geese calling overhead in the evening sky, my children will soon return to this land and to our nest with tales of what they have seen out in the world beyond my doors. I drift to sleep at peace knowing that we share the river, before our goodbyes.