Our Summer of Surrender

The word surrender came to me while I was driving far into New Jersey to give up one of our two cats, accompanied desperate scratching and whining from the passenger seat. We adopted that cat, already mature, three years ago to be a companion to the one we already had, but the project had not been a great success. I could easily live without pets, but the rest of the household love them. This cat was high maintenance from the start, and when we had arranged to move to a smaller apartment, I made the decision for the family that it would not work to keep it. This decision was partly based on sound logic and partly on anger, but I kept to it despite the familial distress it caused, and so found myself driving to the shelter in Jersey.

I was thinking about what would happen when I arrived, and found these cat people judging me and even trying to cajole me to take the cat back home. What words should I use? I decided to frame it as surrendering the cat, and I noted that once I arrived this was the verb used on the forms of the home as well. The cat was duly surrendered, to a good home, and I still feel it was the right choice for us, despite the old pang of guilt.

Then I took the verb further. This entire summer has been one of surrender for our family.

The kids have surrendered the most in their transition into college. They have surrendered youth, trading their lives of established friendships, defined agendas and parental protection for the uncertainties of residential college. In one case, there has been some surrender of innocence as well, witnessed by somewhat reckless road trips and a couple of hangovers.

For us, the toughest surrender has been of the kids, letting them fly into this new phase, abandoning our control and protection and leaving the house feeling suddenly empty. I think of those corny cartoon characters people stick onto the back of their cars, with daddy (daddy always first, betraying the conservatism of this type of family), mummy, the kids and pets lined up in order. Our tribe has gone from six to three in very short order – indeed for the two weeks that Carmela is in Holland getting Laura started I am down to just two, with just the remaining cat for company.

Then, with the choice to move to an apartment to save some money, we have also surrendered the familiarity of house where we were living, and started the painful process of surrendering possessions as well. While the apartment has many advantages, it lacks its own parking space, leading me to wonder whether it is time to surrender our car as well, since Zipcars and Uber are so ever-present nowadays.

Surrender is a great verb to describe our experiences, because at its surface it implies failure and resistance but because it also points to the best path forward. The term is most commonly used in a war or dispute scenario, where surrender is linked to abject defeat and sometimes even to cowardice. In our macho world, this is not something to accept might apply to us – you can hardly imagine the current US president using the term, at least not to describe himself or his own side. We are inured to resist the concept, and hence to resist what might lead to it being needed.

But surrender is really a beautiful thing. Love always involves surrender, and sex often does. Surrendering of secrets and fears can be the most liberating thing on earth. True peace must involve surrender by both sides in a conflict – otherwise it will fester and ignite again later.

A good example is driving with a deadline and hitting traffic. This happened to me last week when taking Carmela and Laura to Newark for their plane to Holland. We left in plenty of time, but there was a snarl up approaching the Holland tunnel that seemed endless – not an uncommon scenario. I went through the normal stages, from complacency to growing anxiety and anger, then mentally assessing alternate routes. After all these stages, I surrendered, sure that I could do nothing to alter our fate. The anxiety and anger lifted, and, as usually happens, so did the traffic, and we arrived in good time.

It is similar in the dentist’s chair. Once we have learned that a bit of pain is inevitable and surrendered to it, suddenly the pain is not so bad after all.

It is not a coincidence that the first step in twelve step programmes and some other therapies is surrender. Step one involves admitting that we are powerless against our addiction and that life has become unmanageable. Surrender! That is the necessary condition for healing. We hand over to fate or a higher power or something outside our control, and then we stand a chance at liberation.

Faith is really surrender. It recognises that we choose to believe something that we cannot prove no matter how hard we try. Christianity does not use the verb very much, perhaps because of its negative connotations, but it would be an apt choice in many prayers.

Finally, I have seen many times people surrendering to death, and always witnessed how that gives peace and clarity of thought and can make even death a beautiful thing.

When reading about surrender, one article suggested four steps to follow. First, surrender fear: fear is the source of our resistance, and once we can surrender to fear then it will often disappear. Next, we should surround ourselves with healing people. Then we should prepare a nurturing space, in our physical lives and in our minds. Finally, we can surrender to peacefulness. I can see some value in such a model, since it might help us through bottlenecks towards our surrender.

So perhaps I stumbled upon a rather good word on my noisy journey to Jersey. The key to our summer of surrender is actually to surrender, rather than to resist or anticipate or fear. Some aspects of our yielding will be much easier than others, but the mental model of surrender could be our best friend.

Already, I sense a lightness while in the new apartment. I don’t anticipate too much mourning for the car. The hardest part will be surrendering the kids to the next stage of their development, facing daily choices at college that previously we could have helped them with. If all of us can find an attitude of surrender, then probably we will be OK, and even feel lighter and find many blessings in our new situations.

Will our summer of surrender feed into an autumn of peace? I can hope so, but there will be challenging steps on the way. At least now I have a roadmap. Maybe you could use the same one – it is free, and available to everyone.