No one ever doubted that Rachel would attend university, it was her single aim throughout her time at Rockcliffe Academy and she worked hard to achieve it. As the time drew near for her to leave, my feelings were conflicting. Like any mother approaching the empty nest phase of life, I worried for my daughter. Would she cope, would she look after herself properly, and make the right sort of friends? The last issue was probably the most unfounded; Rachel didn’t make any friends and didn’t appear to need them.
As well as these expected sentiments, things which all parents concerned themselves with, there were others which I hardly dared to voice, except perhaps to Tom. Our daughter’s departure was going to be a relief. It’s a difficult admission to make, but Rachel’s presence in the house always brought with it a tension which her departure would almost certainly alleviate. It’s not that we wanted her to go. I knew we would worry about her, but Rachel was a very mature young woman and perhaps gaining her independence would be the making of us all.
Our daughter gained excellent results in her A Levels, excelling in maths, chemistry, biology and physics. Naturally, we were proud of her as she was offered a place at Aston University in Birmingham to do her Mpharm. The master’s degree was a four-year course that would qualify Rachel as a pharmacist, her chosen career.
During the weeks before she was due to leave, Rachel allowed me to help her prepare, and together we shopped for the essentials she would need to live away from home, including the purchase of a new laptop as a gift. Tom also arranged for a generous monthly payment to go into her bank account. We didn’t want her to have to worry about money.
When the day of departure arrived, we drove Rachel to Birmingham, a distance of only sixty miles, and helped carry her belongings into the Halls of Residence, where she would live for her first year. Tom offered to take the three of us out for a meal before we left, but Rachel declined the offer, saying she wanted to unpack and organise her room.
The final goodbye was a rather impassive event. Being wary of showing emotion, as I knew Rachel would be embarrassed by any such display, I gave my daughter only a brief hug. She’d never sought out physical contact and barely reciprocated. Tom too attempted a hug before we left rather awkwardly, reminding her to ring home when she had the chance.
I don’t think either of us knew what to say on the way home. It was a watershed moment in our lives and we each cosseted our own thoughts, almost afraid to admit what we were feeling. Later, however, once back at home, we confessed to a sense of relief and spent the evening pondering what our life would be like from then onwards.
Our relationship with Rachel was never a warm one, not for want of trying, but we agreed that we’d done our best, and all we could do now was to be there for her if she needed us. We could do nothing other than wait and see where the relationship travelled from there.
The only other person I could confide in was my friend, Brenda Chapman. We’d both known the pain of losing a child and our friendship strengthened in many ways over the years. Brenda’s two other children were both at university, so she understood, to a point, what I was feeling. She was also aware of the unusual relationship Tom and I had with Rachel, and her accurate perceptions and understanding of my confused emotions were comforting.
Sometimes guilt about Rachel stifled me. It wasn’t as if she’d been problematic in ways many children and adolescents are. She was just cold, unresponsive, and almost apathetic to human sentiments. In many ways, I could be proud of her; academically, she was quite brilliant and her behaviour was generally good, so why did I feel as if I didn’t know my daughter? Could the problem be with me, or was it, as we’d often considered, in the genes? Yet, I shall not go there again – we’d lost Jenny, and I was grateful we still had Rachel.
Sadly, we also lost my father at this time. His death was sudden, a stroke from which he never recovered, but mercifully it was over quickly and he didn’t have to endure a long and drawn-out period of illness. Our life was changing once again and I was unsure of how the future would evolve.
For the first time in our married life, Tom and I had only ourselves to think about, and with a niggling sense of guilt, we could plan things we’d never considered before. Travel was now a possibility. Rachel loathed holidays, they took her out of her comfort zone and she made it perfectly clear that she’d rather be at home, in her usual routine. Now that we were free to broaden our horizons, we would have to relearn how to enjoy ourselves, to think of our own pleasures without the sense of guilt that so often accompanied this concept for us.
During Rachel’s first term at university, she rang each week dutifully, although as time went on, with diminishing frequency. Our conversations were stilted, generally consisting of a breakdown of her studies, upcoming exams, assignments, tutorials and the like. Not that I wasn’t interested, I was, but I wondered about my daughter’s social life or lack of it. I longed for her to tell me she’d met a boy, to hear some excitement in her voice, some anticipation of events other than papers to be handed in and forthcoming exams. I fell into the pattern of letting Rachel dictate the conversation and it was apparent that absence did not make her heart grow fonder.
At the beginning of her second year of studies, Rachel moved into a small flat on her own, which she decided to buy using the money we paid regularly into her account. Tom and I hoped she’d make friends during those early days, perhaps someone with whom she’d wish to share a flat, or a house, as many students do. But there was never any mention of friends. She remained solitary by choice.
Rachel secured a weekend job in a pharmacy, which seemed a sensible idea and was undoubtedly compatible with her studies. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if one reason for seeking employment was to make it difficult to come home at weekends and even holidays. Our daughter did come home a few times during that first year, but visits grew less frequent. Time in the library at university always took priority over being with us. Still, I was grateful that she kept in touch and shouldn’t have been surprised at all by Rachel’s choices. She’d always been independent.
Tom and I were slowly accepting this new relationship with our daughter, who was an adult, making her own decisions and planning her future. We knew we would only be included in her life if, and when, she wanted us to be. And so, it was time to abandon our worries. We’d done our best for her over the years and would continue to do so as often as she would allow.
It occurred to me that when many children were striving to reach their parents’ expectations and make their parents proud of them, it was the exact reverse for Tom and me. We always tried to be the kind of parents Rachel wanted, and now that she was a young woman, I was beginning to realise that we had failed miserably in our efforts. Was I beginning to fear my daughter even then, her judgement on us as parents, and her expectations that we’d so obviously not met? It became the case that I was so afraid of doing the wrong thing that, to my shame, I did nothing, allowing my relationship with Rachel to drift, to be dictated by her and entirely on her terms. Sadly, this was the way it continued ever since.
Tom remained as busy as ever with work, but I, too, felt the need to be active, both mentally and physically and so I decided that it was time to re-enter the world of work. I’d continued with my studies and now eagerly started applying for jobs.
