My son recently turned 38 years. How could it happen so quickly, the passage from baby to toddler to school boy to adolescent to university graduate to father? I was always running to keep up as a mother beside him, but now I have to just stop and pause and marvel at what he has become. The complex interaction of nature and nurture and environment and experience, all shape what our offspring grow into and out of. Seeds to saplings to trees in full majesty. Being a mother to a son, is a constant reevaluation of who he is and I am, at any one moment in time. How we communicate and live through these rites of passage and circles and cycles, requires constant letting go to what was, and greeting with fresh eyes what is. Raised in a generation where emotions were not a topic of conversation with my parents, I’ve had to write my own handbook for how to be an adult parent to an adult child. I’ve messed up, screwed up, torn out pages and started again. I’ve had to question my beliefs, perceptions and judgements about what works and what doesn’t. Like any relationship of value, I’ve had to dig deep and walk uncomfortable paths of just not knowing.

I wrote my son a poem for this last birthday. As a wordsmith I guess it’s the most obvious and closest to home kind of present, you would expect me to offer. That I have not seen him for seven years, makes it even more heartfelt. I share it here, for all those mothers who are making their journey with their adult sons, in good times and in bad as we stumble and gaff and keep trying to connect and understand the child we birthed in one generation, who is coming of age in another.

As Kahlil Gibran wrote - we parents are the bow which sends the arrow in flight out into the world. It is not ours to know where it will land.

38 today - Gentle James

It’s been a long road, for you and me, with bends and twists and a few dark clouds, but mostly sunshine and blue skies.

Now at 38, as I see that small bundle of golden light - I held as a babe - be his full grown - man height, I am in awe at what he has become.

◦ Kind and thoughtful.
◦ Deep and sensitive.
◦ Heart yearning.
◦ Community engaged.
◦ Good food and soil centric advocate.
◦ Principled - to ensure we live in harmony with nature.
◦ A conscious father in an unconscious world.
◦ A life enhancer for those needing his laughter and listening ear.
◦ A sacred being -

I am proud and humbled to call my son.

Happy Birthday darling boy.

Julia - a mother of a grown up son in Portugal