Should I crash my son's gap year?

An empty nest hits some parents harder than expected and Michelle Obama recently admitted to having therapy to deal with hers. I'm the same age as Mrs O, a 'nan-aged' empty-nester who had two sons in my late thirties and early forties. However, after the sudden accidental death of my elder son, Jackson, in September 2023, at the age of just 21, it's fair to say my nest is even emptier than the former first lady's. Emptier, indeed, than I ever imagined it could be.
I haven't had therapy and found other ways to get through. Yet towards the end of 2024 I'd all but exhausted my coping strategies when my partner was suddenly diagnosed with cancer and rushed into surgery. To deal with yet more extreme stress I chose to retreat; to batten down the hatches to get through what promised to be another tough winter, at the end of the cruellest year of my life.
If this wasn't tough enough, while navigating profound personal loss and illness I lost friendships too. Inevitably, as so many testing, unanticipated chapters of my life unfolded, not everybody in it was able to stay on the same page.
Still, while in this peculiar holding pattern I had sufficient wherewithal to suggest to my 18-year-old son, Rider, that after the worst year of his life — coinciding with his A-levels — he should probably embark on his richly deserved gap year even sooner than he had planned. With my partner about to start three months of postoperative preventive chemotherapy and Rider's friends scattered to uni or on travels of their own, there was little to look forward to at home, in the House of Absolutely No Fun Whatsoever.
The Bank of Mum and Dad — albeit separated and repartnered for many years — ensured Rider boarded a flight to Brisbane on December 5 last year. At the other end he was met by my Aussie half-brother, Jonny, sister-in-law, Felicity, and two of my three nephews, Dominic, 10, and Memphis, 14 months, whom I'd never even met myself. It had been 16 years since I'd last visited Australia (along with a six-year-old Jackson) and 12 years since my Australian family had visited me; the latest addition to their family was born exactly a month to the day after Jackson had died.
Given that my Aussie-born, UK-based father died in 2019 and my Aussie mother (who returned to Australia 45 years ago) died in 2020, during Covid, what remained of my diminished gene pool was quite suddenly all on the other side of the world. While I was born in the UK and have lived the whole of my adult life here I felt an umbilical tug.
The thing is, my earliest memories are of the year I spent in Oz, aged three, when my mother had a trial separation from my father and took me 'home' — she was a country girl, having grown up on an 80,000-acre sheep station on the New South Wales/Victoria border. My parents eventually reconciled (for a few years) and I returned from my free-range year roaming the Australian bush to the suburbs of London. Accessorised by a tan and a broad Aussie accent, I defaulted to 'steereo' for stereo (a word used more often in the 1960s/1970s than today!) for years.
After his arrival I gave Rider long enough to get over the jet lag and used to the high-summer heat before I started begging for pictures and updates via WhatsApp … Poor kid! Previously he and his brother had navigated the usual blended family's revolving doors ('Make sure you phone Mum on Mother's Day … I'll buy the card for Father's Day …'). They had each other's backs; now, tragically, Rider faced a future navigating the demands of his separated-but-equally-bereaved parents all by himself. His father and I inevitably both want big pieces of him while recognising he needs a new space for himself, free from our neediness; inevitably a tough balancing act for all. In the meantime, however, thank God for WhatsApp.
'What do you think of Australia so far?!'
'Amazing. I love it!'
'Good to hear! Show me the view!'
Rider turned his phone around, waving a 'tinny' at a sunset over the gum trees with a twinkling Southern Cross emerging in the early evening sky. I sighed.
'That looks fantastic. Have the best time. Love you loads …'
It really was a visceral tug. Yet I knew it was for the best that Rider remained a long way away from home during yet another emotionally bleak winter. Shortly before he died Jackson said that 2023 had been 'the perfect summer'. And now, if only by default in the light of his death, 2023 had become my 'perfect summer' too. Yet, once again, summer — the metaphorical and the real one ahead — seemed very far away, while future 'perfect summers' felt impossibly out of reach.
Meantime I battened down the hatches once more. As my partner embarked on three months of chemotherapy I wanted to be there for him. However, (if all went well) afterwards I also wanted to reclaim space for myself.
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As Rider celebrated Aussie Christmas in Queensland — barbecue, swimming, cricket, hitting Surfers Paradise bars and clubs with his eldest cousin, Jordan — I hatched a plan. By the time he'd travelled to Sydney for New Year before arriving in Melbourne, I knew what I needed to do. Though how would my son feel if I crashed his gap year?
Have you ever joined your child on their gap year? Let us know in the comments below

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