The Third Hand: Finding Spiritual Comfort in Empty Nesting

It took barely two months to radically transform our family. Our younger daughter graduated high school. One week later, she passed her driving test. The following week, she left home to work at Camp JCA-Shalom, from which we just helped her move to the UC campus of her choice. With our older daughter already living independently, it’s just my husband and me now left at home.

So much of my identity in the last two decades revolved about being a parent, i.e., a  24/7 caretaker, who would drive our daughters to school, shop for groceries, ensure homework gets done, plan and execute playdates, sports practices, doctor’s appointments, read bedtime stories, and try to be their trusted confidante while also a wiser adult. 

With most of it suddenly gone from my life, I find myself adrift about who I am. I miss the “good old days,” and I wish things had stayed the same. 

The Third Hand

Setting aside some time to sit down and meditate amidst this change, I was expecting to find peace and balance, but instead I felt uncomfortable, restless, engulfed in a profound sense of instability tinged with desperation. When I was finally able to get out of my head and start paying attention to physical sensations, I noticed a pocket of warmth, radiating from my right palm which was supporting the left one in my lap. My hands, I noted, are always with me, they do the work that needs to be done, and do it together, one supporting the other.

“It’s a lot,” I heard my inner voice say, “but you’ll make it through, you always have yourself.”

This was comforting. It was a good place to start, but not enough. Yes, I could always rely on myself, but I felt small, like a flame flickering at an open window. Something was still amiss.

I recounted this experience to my spiritual teacher, who surprised me by saying: “You tell me you are a person of faith. If you are, don’t you feel a third hand underneath?”

He meant G-d, and with that, it all came together. Discomfort is a necessary part of change, but I am never alone shouldering the weight. This is what the Jewish tradition calls bitachon – the ability to rely on G-d that liberates us to do our best, to realize our fullest potential. “When you pass through water, I will be with you; through streams, they shall not overwhelm you” (Isaiah 43:2).

Discomfort is a necessary part of change, but I am never alone shouldering the weight. 

The image of my two hands in the third hand that holds them and guides them stayed with me, helped to pull me through. 

When overwhelmed, pause and look inside, you are lo levad – never alone.

Gratitude in times of sadness

From a mindful perspective, some things are real and they exist, while others exist only in the mind. To separate the two, the question I need to ask myself is what is my reality of being a Dad — today?

What I see is that I am still my kids’ father. I still support them and worry about them constantly, even if from a distance. My care is definitely less hands-on, but my love not a bit less. And yes, I do feel sad that things have changed. All that is true.

My sadness is real and present, but in our tradition, we can frame it transformatively with … gratitude. It might sound like a contradiction, but it really isn’t. We thank G-d for every situation He has decided to put us in: good or bad, uplifting or depressing. The traditional Jewish blessing on hearing bad news, the one you might have used visiting a house of mourning, or seen shortened to ‘BDE’ in Facebook condolences is:

“Blessed (‘barukh’) be You, L-rd our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, the Judge of Truth (‘dayan ha-emet’).”  

Saying it, we acknowledge that only G-d is the true judge of every situation. In other words, most life changes are beyond us. There should be a point to them, even if we don’t know it, and we have to trust that. 

No growth without change

“Barukh dayan ha-emet” isn’t just for funerals, but for any unpleasant situation or news. One particular teaching by Rav Kook about this blessing also made me think about our daughters’ leaving home in a different way. As he writes in Ein Eyah, II-328: 

“A self-centered individual will look at all circumstances only in the context of his own narrow interests. From this viewpoint, good and bad are measured purely by selfish criteria.” 

One of the reasons for my sadness is that I’ve been clutching to the idea that my kids would always live with me, and that I would always direct and control their lives to their benefit, and be able to protect them from the dangers of this world. This would be, in Rav Kook’s terms, selfish as it would really primarily benefit me, prolonging the familiar and comfortable parent-child relationship we had when they were kids, rather than letting it evolve into a more mature bond between a parent and an adult child. 

In other words, my daughters need these changes so they can grow and transform into the independent adults they are meant to become. That’s the positive side of change: There is no growth without change. 

Now that they are adults, I am letting go of them for their own sake. Not letting go entirely, but stepping back, giving them room to spread their wings, and praying and trusting G-d that they will take off safely.

Lane Igoudin is the author of A Family, Maybe (2024), a journey through foster adoptions to fatherhood, and has written for Forward,  Jewish News, LA Jewish Home, and Parabola. He is professor of English/ESL at Los Angeles City College.