Transitions
My triplets and I head to the assigned studio in Fort Lauderdale for their senior graduation photos. The boys’ tall, lanky bodies overflow my Honda sedan, the mini-van long gone since they learned to drive. Each boy wears a white t-shirt as instructed in the school’s email and one white dress shirt is draped across the car’s middle console. Like almost every moment in their lives to this point, the boys are planning to share clothes for the photoshoot.
In 2007, my essay, “My Triplets Were Inseparable, Whatever the Risks,” was published in the New York Times “Modern Love” section. I wrote about their (and my) rough beginning – how petrified I was to be carrying triplets, how they needed so much hospital care and therapy to grow and be fine. And now here we are in their senior year of high school, preparing to say good-bye.
We pull into the studio parking lot and scrounge the car for masks. Nervous Nico, as his brothers like to tease him, already has one in his pocket that he quickly slides onto his face. The other two find cloth masks their grandmother made and tie them into place. We enter the reception area and Sebi, the assertive go-getter, jockeys to go first. The lady hands him a blazer while assessing the size of his brothers.
When the boys were young, I used to lift their little bodies high above my head and say, “One day you will be this tall and you will look down on me and say, ‘hey Momma, gimme the car keys.’ ” We would laugh as I plopped them back to the floor, none of us able to imagine that this day would ever really come. Our lives were just too busy to imagine much of anything. We were inundated with all of their school obligations, soccer practices, music lessons, beach days, sleepovers, and when they turned six, a new baby brother.
At odd moments in their tweens when I did pause to contemplate a much emptier nest, I had assumed I would feel relief. I had thought that all those years of balls flying in the house, loud voices bouncing from our tile floors, and ping pong games in the living room would surely make me ready to regain some peace, to find some sense of self again. I’d no longer discover old sandwiches stashed in car seat pockets, wet towels marking the couch, scattered shoes across every room (always the missing flip flop). I would not miss the eight a.m. soccer games on the other side of town, my trunk-filled bags of groceries that only lasted a couple of days, or, of course, the two to three extra-large loads of laundry every day.
When the triplets started high school, I was traveling almost every week for work, usually within the U.S. but a few times to China. My husband did the same with trips to Latin America and the West Coast. The boys were also in constant motion, revolving in and out of the house at all hours, driving themselves to school, sporting events, jobs, and girlfriends’ houses. We had family dinners and movie nights but usually one or two were off living their own lives, away from us.
And then the pandemic hit and it all stopped. We found ourselves home together again doing puzzles, cooking, playing games in a family olympics of ping pong, FUZE ball, darts and basketball. We watched an endless Netflix series and rolled around the floor with our dog. It was like we had traveled back in time to when the boys were young and had nowhere to be but home with us.
I feel my throat tighten as I reach up to help each boy button the top of the shared dress shirt. Taller than me now, they look down at me with sloppy grins and a new confidence that I have not noticed before. But here I am buttoning the shirt, straightening their ties. The mixed message falls on me in a confusing swirl.
I position their shiny blue graduation caps for the final shot and jump wildly by the photographer’s side to bring out their sincere smiles. We laugh when Ben moves from his laugh to a pseudo-serious expression as instructed by the photographer. The boys wrap up the session with some goofy group shots – holding Nico sideways across their swaying gowns, wrapping their long arms around each other’s neck in a staggered staircase. We thank the photographer and pile back into the car. During the ride home, as the boys chatter about the evening’s soccer games on TV and college applications, I try to ignore an aching lump in my throat.
Six years have passed. The triplets have graduated from college and are living in different cities across the country. Their younger brother recently went to the very same photo studio for his high school graduation pictures. This time, though, I did not accompany him. He went with a friend and straightened his own tie. How different from when the triplets started their senior year and I held back my motherly tears. With my youngest, I felt remarkably at peace and excited for all that lay ahead.
© Susanne Sanchez
Susanne Sanchez is a business executive whose writing explores family, motherhood, and spirituality. She lives in Boca Raton, Florida.
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