On Saying Goodbye

At least for us, it's not forever....

The suitcases are (mostly) packed and the boxes are (almost) shipped. It feels like everyone I know has just dropped off a child for their first year at college or is about to drop them off. I will also be dropping one off, although my kid starts later than most thanks to the quarter system. With a few weeks left before the first term begins, I have yet to face the moment of giving my child a final kiss and saying goodbye. I’m not very sentimental about the first year of college: I know that parenting doesn’t end here and that they will still need me …just differently. Still, I’m prepared to be caught off-guard in those final minutes and for the floodgates to open. I’ll bring plenty of tissues and hydrate in advance.

Which brings me to Catherine de’ Medici because, well, what doesn’t these days? For those of you who may be new to this newsletter – welcome! – you may not know that my forthcoming Young Queens began as a research crush on Catherine de’ Medici, the sixteenth-century Queen Mother of France. Sure, she has a staggeringly nefarious reputation, but once I started to wade through the usual sexist ugliness that always follows women in power, I found a queen of startling complexity. She reigned over France in all but name for over 30 years, through a morass of religious strife, political intrigue, and outright civil war. Somehow, she held on. She also did her duty as queen, giving birth to ten children and raising almost all to adulthood (an admirable feat in the sixteenth century). Yes, she was a demanding mother. Yes, she was controlling and manipulative. But she also doted on her children. Many of them would go on to disappoint and frustrate her, but she loved them – this has become abundantly clear to me from her letters.

Catherine also loved her grandchildren, her granddaughter Christine of Lorraine most of all. After the tragic death of Christine’s mother, Catherine took Christine under her wing and raised her at the French court. The two were close, unusually close, in part because they had years together to nurture their relationship. Whereas noble girls in the Renaissance often married in their teens, Christine was almost twenty-four by the time she married Ferdinand I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Until then, Christine was a constant presence at Catherine’s side.

Catherine had this portrait of her young granddaughter Christine of Lorraine pasted into a prayer book. The prayer book boasts a number of family portraits, but Christine gets her very own page. Christine was in her tweens or early teens when the portrait was made.

Christine was officially betrothed to Ferdinand in December 1588. By then, Catherine had fallen gravely ill from ailments both physical and emotional. Her joints ached from gout, and a persistent cough rattled in her chest. The kingdom of France, meanwhile, had descended into bloody civil war. Catherine thought it likely that her son, the king, might lose his throne.

Sick and beleaguered though she was, Catherine dragged herself out of bed that December to throw a ball for the newly engaged couple, Christine and Ferdinand. She had pushed for the marriage and was thrilled to see it come to pass. The party she threw was magnificent. After the festivities, she returned to her sickbed and never regained her health. One diplomat thought it was Christine’s imminent departure for Florence that sent Catherine’s health spiraling downward. He was probably right: Catherine knew that once Christine left France, she would never see her beloved granddaughter again.

Christine of Lorraine would follow in Catherine’s footsteps. As Grand Duchess consort of Tuscany, she ruled Florence in all but name, guiding the reigns of her son and grandson. She also became the patron of countless artists, writers, and scientists – most famously Galileo. Catherine de’ Medici lived to see none of this. She died in early January 1588, only a few weeks after Christine’s betrothal.

I have been thinking of Christine of Lorraine’s betrothal party: the bittersweetness of it. The pride that Catherine must have felt to see her intelligent and savvy granddaughter grown up and thriving, married in a brilliant political match. But she also felt a crushing sorrow, knowing she was losing this grandchild. Catherine had already suffered through the deaths of husband and children, through years of war with no end in sight. Christine had been her solace, the living remnant of the family that Catherine had built. Now, too, Christine would leave. What tenderness was in that final kiss goodbye? A feeling beyond bittersweetness: pride, joy, and utter grief rolled into one.

Leaving for college is hardly like leaving for a dynastic marriage amid civil war. But I can’t help but draw a parallel in the idea of parting. When our kids leave for university, we sense that something drastic has shifted. The same was true of girls in the Renaissance who left home for marriage. A page had turned; they belonged now to their husband’s family. Nothing would be quite the same again.

Yet, we are spared the anguish they felt. Thanks to modern transportation, to a robust postal system, the phone, the iPhone, FaceTime, and Zoom, our children get to be with us, even from hundreds of miles away. They are tethered to us virtually. They come home again. The tears we shed when they leave mark a gentle recognition that one chapter has ended, and another begins. I often forget the emotional toll that people of the past paid even at life’s happiest of moments, like Christine’s engagement party. Their own goodbyes were forever, their tears despairing.