At the end of the bed

by

Patti Dickinson

I had a teary, homesick phone call from one of my out-of-the-house kids the other day. This particular kid just graduated from Knox College last spring, and is now finding her way as a newly-launched adult in Chicago. She had an internship at The Vitalist Theatre that began in early June, and it is stuttering to the end as she wraps up assistant-stage-managing "The Night Season". The good news is that she has another internship at The Eclipse Theatre beginning in October, with a two week overlap with The Vitalist. This new job is a step up....she will be dropping the "assistant" prefix and stage-manage! It is during those two weeks that she will find out what she is made of, working two full-time jobs and putting a lot of miles on that rusted blue Schwinn.

As we talked through life's highs and lows.....the highs --- how the new job will be only a five mile bike ride from her apartment, instead of the six and a half miles she has been peddling. Inclement weather? Not to worry. The buses in Chicago are equipped with bike racks on the front! Also in the going-well column is that she has a third interview with North Face. A job that pays a real salary, instead of the paying-your-dues internships that are resume boosters and put very little food on the table! The lows include some boyfriend issues, a tangled web of decisions waiting to be made. She needs a backboard, and I am happy to fill that role, although I probably interjected my two cents more often than I should have. And she got quiet. And I kept saying, "What, Kathleen?" Wanting her to fill the silence so I knew how to proceed in the conversation. And she said, "Mom....I just need a weekend at home. I just need some time to talk at the end of your bed."

You know those times when you are in perfect synchronicity with someone else? How both of you know exactly what the other is thinking/feeling without any more words that that?

Some of the most important moments in our lives have happened with a kid perched on the bottom of our bed. Me at the pillow end, the kid in question at the bottom. Facing each other. The perfect combination of eye contact and closeness to make the rest of the world fall back. And all that matters is the two of us. Allowing the power of family, this kid of mine that I physically brought into this world after carting her around for nine months to emerge. Now she, at 23, still feels the pull to revisit that place where problems get solved, tears are okay, the Kleenex box between us. And whatever is wrong, while maybe not righted at that very moment, is more clearly understood just having shared it with someone who loves them so very much. Just putting words to the feelings in a safe place. There is something sacred about that.

At the end of the bed.....we've talked about broken friendships, promises and boyfriend splits. We've waxed poetic and shared fears, worries and hard-to-put-into-words disappointments. It's where Wood and I heard about first dates. And last dates. Where I heard every last detail about the Father-Daughter Dance at Bishop Miege where Wood Dickinson took three daughters to dance. Where we talked over where to go to college and where they got a speeding ticket. And why they missed their curfew....again. All of these conversations took place as the day wound down. When the harshness of the world outside our windows seemed to retreat a bit.

Yes, we've lost some sleep over those late night conversations. But I've gained so much more. This tradition made me a non-believer in bedtimes. Too rigid. I don't shoo my kids to bed. I welcome them to ours.....to sit a spell. It is, hands-down, one of the Dickinson Family's best traditions.