Everything was all set. This was Family Weekend at Meg's new college. The hotel reservation was made, the housesitter lined up, the tickets to Meg's Friday evening choral concert waiting for us at Will Call, and dinner reservations for
five
– five! – made at the restaurant she chose. It was
picture-perfect.
Then,
in a remarkable week, not only did the Red Sox win the World Series,
but Anna's Varsity soccer team beat a higher seeded competitor in the
State championship quarter-finals, and they would be playing in the
semi-finals for the first time in fifteen years! On Saturday! At
5:00! Right during Meg's second concert two hundred miles away!
“It's
all right Mama, I understand, you should go, I know how much you want
to hear Meg sing,” Anna told me. With her permission, I could keep
the picture I had been carrying in my heart intact. Meg in a long
black dress, singing classical choral music on risers, the rich
sounds of men's and women's voices rolling out over the concert hall.
And the next night, Meg in a group of twelve women, singing “Bennie
and the Jets” a capella, their short skirts and animated faces
keeping time before a full house of cheering students and families.
Except,
Anna wouldn't be there.
“It's
ok Mom, you should be there for Anna,” Meg said on the phone. She
had played in championship high school games, and she knew how
important it was to have her family in the stands. She was giving me
permission
to imagine a new picture of my weekend, one with Anna's team in their
uniforms and cleats, and parents filling aluminum bleachers and wild
cheering and watching the scoreboard and being ready for the
emotional elation or despondency afterwards. And then coming home
with my girl in the front seat next to me, sleeping in the next
morning, being there with her. It was a good picture, just
different.
Each
of my daughters was ready to divide their sense of wholeness – of
the family that roots for them – for the other. Because of them, I
began to conjure up a third possibility in which I could spend one
day with each. The details filled in, thanks to Bob and Andrew, the
house-sitter, team-mates' families, and a Prius. The distance was not
so far. I had a new picture in my heart as Friday approached, not of
a heart divided in two, but of two wholenesses.
The
way it turned out was that Meg lost her voice over the course of the
weekend, and Anna's team lost the game. But it was a great weekend.
I think we all would agree.