When you have kids, you typically go to great lengths to plan their arrival. You recognize that certain activities in your life will give way to family events—preschool performances, dance recitals, sporting events, birthday parties…the list goes on. Family time becomes the focus of your daily scheduling. What you don’t plan for, and what takes you by surprise, is their departure. I’ve been talking recently with friends as they are making plans to take their “babies” off to college. It made me recall my experiences.
Labor Day 2004. A long three-day weekend. Both of the kids were home. My son had just completed his summer program at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and my daughter was home for the long weekend before she became engrossed with her senior year of college. Just the family.
I usually don’t enjoy cooking, but when the whole family is at home, cooking is something that I rarely mind doing. Setting the table for all four of us somehow makes me feel quite happy. Saturday and Sunday I cooked a big breakfast. After we ate, we sat and the table and talked and laughed for quite some time.
We spent time out by the pool—lots of quality family time. The end of summer was fast approaching, but we enjoyed summer’s pleasures that weekend. Crabs, baseball, sunshine, and swimming.
It went by all too fast. Monday morning we loaded up the car with all of my son’s gear and would soon be on our way to the train station at BWI airport. He was off to begin his freshman year of college. It was an exciting time. But as I stood at his bedroom door and gazed at the things that were so much a part of his growing up, it was a sad time. “Come on, Mom,” I heard my son bellow, “we’ll be late!”
I stood on the platform and watched that train until it was no longer visible. Then my husband and I got back in the car for the return trip home. Our daughter was still there, packing up for her ride back to college. We helped her pack up the car, hugged and kissed her, and then watched her back out of the driveway and head down the road.
That’s when it hit me. I turned to my husband and realized that it was just the two of us. We held hands and walked back into our empty nest. I know that there were tears in my eyes, but by the time we had settled into our chairs in the family room to finally read the newspapers from the weekend, I felt strangely at peace. This was the way it was supposed to be. We had prepared our kids to go off and do wonderful things, to learn, and to live. It was time for us to do the same thing.
I think it was then that I realized I had about three chapters to read for my master’s class. My homework was calling me. It was once again time to start down a new road to adventure!
This blog post appeared as my column, The Empty Nest, in the Sunday September 5, 2011, edition of the Frederick News Post.
No comments:
Post a Comment