by Beth Keeley
I embraced motherhood without realizing the Marine Corps would reveal the most difficult part of being a mom: to surrender. My husband, Larry, and I have four children: two boys and two girls. Sean is the eldest. Skylar, our second son, followed two and a half years later. Piper, our first daughter, arrived less than two years later to kick Skylar out of the crib, and Willow joined the Keeley kids a little more than a year later. While each has taught me unexpected lessons about parenting, Skylar exposed the most painful one.
Skylar followed a plan just fine, but he deviated when it suited him. He started life by being born two weeks early and clearly didn’t want to wait for the doctor to catch him and welcome him into the world. Three years later, shortly after his sister Piper was born, I sat Skylar and Sean at the art table—a round, wooden table passed to our growing family when my in-laws downsized. On that table, we smashed Play-Doh, added color to white pages, and smeared finger paints on empty canvases. I tucked the art table in the far corner of the front room, and this was our play space. A simple rag rug crocheted by my mom out of light blue scraps of cloth protected the wood floor from battles with dragons, Lego constructions, wooden train tracks, and flying airplanes. This space held memory, knack, and ability, and the art table was the center of it all.
As Skylar and Sean scooted forward to the front of their seats, I brought in a rack of chocolate cupcakes and a bowl of vanilla buttercream frosting. I asked the boys to spread the buttercream on top of each cupcake before setting them on the red plate in the center of the table. Leaving them to work, I returned to the kitchen to pick up my mug of tepid tea. Looking over my shoulder, I noticed Sean frosted a couple of cupcakes, while Skylar was methodically spreading buttercream on the same cupcake. I didn’t think too much about it and went to check on the baby. She slept soundly, so I returned to sit with the boys. Sean proudly showed me his progress. Skylar worked on the same cupcake I’d first handed him; his small, chubby fingers wrapped around the handle before he set the plastic knife on the table. Clasping the bottom of the cupcake in both hands, he carefully licked off all the icing. I paused. Should I laugh or chastise him? Before I’d decided, Skylar plunged the plastic knife back into the bowl of buttercream and began to frost the same cupcake again. That’s Skylar. While he understood what I wanted him to do and even saw his brother following my directions, he had a better plan. He admired his older brother and wasn’t usually defiant about following my instructions; however, Skylar confidently made his own choices in life even then.
As a senior in high school, Skylar mentioned his interest in the military and considered serving after earning a college degree in engineering. He was interested in the Air Force but also took time to meet with a Marine recruiter at the school. Exploring options showed thoughtful consideration for his future. As a senior during the 2019-2020 school year, the start of the COVID pandemic, he completed his last year of high school on his laptop sitting at the art table, now located in the sunroom at the back of the house. It was still the center of the family activities, but instead of painting and puzzles, the table saw more homework and family dinners. While quarantine worked in his favor by keeping the family as a captive audience with nowhere to go, Skylar announced the Marine recruiter he spoke with regularly wanted to come by the house. Because classes met remotely, I assumed he was coming over to follow-up with Skylar. Maybe he wanted to talk to the recruiter about how he might enter the service after earning his college degree. When the Staff Sergeant arrived, Skylar greeted him and led him to the sunroom where Larry, Sean, Piper, and I sat at the art table. There was a breeze through the open windows and the sun warmed the tiles of the floor. Willow, our fourteen-year-old, wasn’t interested in the conversation or meeting strangers, so she stayed in her bedroom. Piper surprised me by staying in the sunroom because I’d expected she would make herself scarce as well. The recruiter shared his speech about the benefits of joining the Marine Corps. I listened politely, disengaged. Skylar planned to go to college after graduation, so this seemed like a waste of the man’s time. I resisted the urge to excuse myself and start making dinner. Had I been interested in knowing the truth, I might have noticed it wasn’t the Staff Sergeant persuading me that enlisting in the Marine Corps was a good decision to make after high school; it was Skylar.
Our son looked directly at us and added, “It’s a really great opportunity to explore different career paths and gain firsthand experience.”
The Staff Sergeant continued with information about the GI Bill paying for college. Skylar nodded in agreement. I kept an eye on the clock, wondering how much longer I needed to stay before excusing myself. While neither Larry nor I enlisted in the military, Larry’s dad served four years in the Air Force during WWII before entering college. My mom enlisted in the Air Force after graduating high school because there wasn’t money for college. She served two years before she married my dad—a decision that at the time required her to leave the service. My dad served twenty-eight years in the Naval Reserve. I knew about the benefits the military offered because it was a part of what helped my parents get started in life.
Unexpectedly, Larry turned in his chair to face Skylar who sat next to him at the art table. “So, is this what you want to do?”
I was stunned to attention. How had I missed what was so obvious to my husband?
Skylar saw an opening to share his plan for his future. Looking directly at his father’s eyes, he responded, “It is. This is what I want to do.”
Larry smiled, “So let’s get that paperwork started.”
Being seventeen, the Marine Corps required both parents to sign the enlistment paperwork. Staff Sergeant pulled the packet of paperwork from his bag like magic. He asked if we had any questions.
I shook my head side to side and said, “No, I don’t have questions.”
I wasn’t honest. I had questions—questions I didn’t want to ask in front of a stranger. What the hell just happened? Did I have a voice? Did my voice matter? What happened to the plan? There was a plan to attend college in the fall. There was a plan! I wouldn’t really understand until the panicked narrative in my head quieted down. Skylar was doing what we’d raised him to do, making his own decisions for his life.
Sean leaned his elbows on the edge of the art table, his hands clasped together. The slight smirk on his face implied that he couldn’t wait until our dinner conversation to hear what we were really thinking and to share his own opinions on the catastrophe quietly unfolding at our table. Piper, moved to a wicker chair in the corner of the room, curious because she had been interested in military service since middle school. She and Skylar were nearly inseparable. They connected as best friends and grew even closer during the quarantine time that year. Piper was quiet, which was in her nature, but she focused intently on the conversation at the table.
As the Staff Sergeant set the paperwork on the table, I asked the only question I was brave enough to put into words.
“I do have a question. If he signs the paperwork today and changes his mind later today or tomorrow, would it be too late? Would he enlist without the ability to reconsider?”
The Staff Sergeant assured me that Skylar could change his mind all the way up to when he left for boot camp and stood on those yellow footprints. I didn’t know what he meant about the yellow footprints, but I hung on to his answer that “Skylar could change his mind.” I hesitantly signed the paperwork to allow my seventeen-year-old son to join the Marines, and I excused myself to start dinner.
Willow quietly slipped down the stairs. I suspected she had been listening to the entire conversation from shadows at the top of the stairs. She asked if our guest was still there. I punched the pizza dough, lifted it, and slapped it down on the marble counter surface.
“Yes, but he’s leaving soon.”
Our dinner conversation was a buzz of me asking questions, the kids sharing their own opinions, and Skylar explaining that he had never stopped wanting to join the Marine Corps.
I spent the next four months hoping he would change his mind and wondering how I missed the clues Skylar gave me all along. I decided that I didn’t want to know the truth, so I’d chosen to ignore the subtle suggestions that Skylar’s plan was different than the one I had.
When it was Skylar’s time to ship off to bootcamp, Piper came along as I drove him to the recruiting station. It was the end of November 2020, and COVID raged as a pandemic. I didn’t know what to expect. I sat with Skylar and Gunnery Sergeant Anderson who asked if I had any questions. I didn’t know anything really, so I didn’t know what to ask.
Wanting to offer me something, he mentioned the crucible: “You’ll want to send him lots of encouraging letters around this date. This is the week before the crucible.”
I had no idea what he meant, but I made a mental note to look it up. I just smiled and nodded my head, “Of course.”
“Have you done this before, madam?”
“What? Dropped my kid off to enlist? No.”
“You seem incredibly calm.”
“It’s all an act. I assure you.” I smiled and winked at Sky.
Wanting to support my son, I said only encouraging comments that mentioned Skylar was ready for this challenge, even if I wasn’t. His choice was one I didn’t understand because this was a new experience, yet we respected and loved one another, and that was enough.
The drive home was quiet. Piper and I exchanged a few words of encouragement to one another although I don’t remember what they were. I waited by the phone the next night to hear that 5-second scripted call “poolees” made when they arrived at the hotel for a 2-week COVID quarantine. Skylar read a brief script that he had arrived at the hotel for quarantine. It was his voice, but not his words. I understood that he would be reading a script and that we would not have a conversation. I talked over him, telling him that I loved him. I didn’t cry, but my hands were shaking.
Thankfully, after two weeks, he tested negative for COVID and traveled to Parris Island, SC, for boot camp. I learned that those who tested positive or had a roommate test positive for COVID remained in quarantine another two weeks or more. Some recruits were there for more than a month. Once he arrived on the island, we received our second scripted phone call: “This recruit has arrived safely at Parris Island. Please do not send any food or bulky items. You will receive a postcard with my mailing address. Thank you for your support. Goodbye.” I cradled the phone in my hand between my husband’s ear and my own. It was about 1:00 in the morning. We screamed over our son’s voice, telling him that we loved him and were proud of him. I don’t know if he heard us, but it made me feel better to scream regardless. I screamed; my husband smiled.
There was a distinct difference between us: the dad and the mom. While my husband puffed with pride, I grieved. Often, I reminded myself that my son didn’t die; he had just left for boot camp. Regardless, my feelings were reminiscent of when I lost my dad. He had been close with young Skylar before he lost his life to cancer. Perhaps, Dad influenced his decision about joining the Marine Corps. Of course, the grief I felt wasn’t the same, but it was uneasily familiar. I felt shattered. Skylar was once a part of me; we shared cells and a body. After each of my children were born, I found the physical space of not having the baby as part of my own body to be a separation of space I struggled with after birth. I had no idea that my heart would intimately remember this obstacle as they grew into young adults who didn’t need their parents in the same ways as before. As author Elizabeth Stone wrote, “Making the decision to have a child—it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” I’d experienced this shortly after the birth of each of my children, again on their first day of school, but this was a new reminder of that truth.
I followed Skylar’s boot camp schedule daily. I knew what his platoon were scheduled to do each week. There were weeks devoted to the swim test, the gas chamber, grass week, field week, etc. The day his platoon started the crucible, I couldn’t sleep. I learned that the crucible is a 54-hour experience where recruits march over 48 miles, with gear of 45 pounds or more. They are physically and mentally tested under the strain of sleep and food deprivation. I learned they would start at 3:00 a.m., and I discovered a tradition that families light a candle—a crucible candle—for the duration their recruits are experiencing the crucible.
Being one for tradition and wanting to DO something to support my son from a distance, I purchased a battery-operated candle for the art table. (I didn’t want to burn the house down with an unattended flame; I had enough on my mind.) The candle had an image of Skylar and a list of the challenges he faced during the crucible. Next to the crucible candle, I placed a Mother Mary devotional candle and my rosary linked together with deep blue lapis beads. I couldn’t even think about sleeping the evening before, so I made tea and watched the clock—occasionally attempting to distract myself with a book or an old black and white episode of Twilight Zone. I felt like I was living in an altered reality of the Twilight Zone. Alone, at 3:00 a.m., felt my heart pounding as I knelt by the table and lit the candle. I recited the rosary in English and, when that wasn’t enough, I listened to an audio of the rosary spoken in Latin. I don’t speak Latin, but I felt comfort in the rosary and knowing that my prayers offered support for my son and his platoon. The crucible candle stayed lit day and night throughout his crucible. When Skylar’s siblings passed by the table, they joked that my space with the crucible candle, devotional candle, rosary, and Skylar’s picture reminded them of a shrine to someone who died. We laughed and I denied it, but in some ways, I suppose it was. The little boy of mine with a quick wit and sweet smile would not be coming home . . . ever. He was undergoing a transformation, and so was I.
Skylar earned the title of Marine on 19 March 2021, and I earned the title MoM, “Mom of Marine,” which is acknowledged after a Marine completes the crucible. Neither of us are the same we were in November 2020. Skylar is more confident, mature, and stronger, both physically and mentally. He’s always had his own way of approaching life. From him, I learned that letting go is an important part of mothering. While I’m still practicing how to do it with grace and gratitude, I’ve realized that there is a tremendous gift in seeing my little boy—blond hair, bare feet, short overalls, and gray-blue, oval glasses—transform into a man and knowing that perhaps some of his most difficult decisions were made based on confidence and strength he discovered and perhaps inherited early in his life. He enlisted in the Marine Corps, earning the title of Marine; I was drafted and earned the title of MoM just the same, as all moms of Marines do.
Skylar left home to become a Marine nearly four years ago. Each time he comes home, I rush in and hug him for as long as I can before loosening my grip. Without meaning to, I always end our first hug the same way.
While holding on as tight as I can, I whisper, “I suppose I have to let go some time.”
Without letting go of me, he always responds, “Yes, you do.”
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Beth Keeley is a professor of English at Wake Technical Community College and the coordinator of WTCC’s English Tutoring and Learning Center. With a passion for teaching and academic support, Beth specializes in composition and American literature. In addition, she is a proud parent of four amazing children—one engineer, two Marines, and one volunteer EMT/college student.
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