This past week, we packed up Eliza’s things, stuffed them into a dangerously full car, and drove over 700 miles to Rider University. We unpacked the car, carried everything into her dorm, helped her get some things set up, had some lunch, and then….drove back to TN without her.
It is the most baffling and difficult thing about being a parent, that your job is to make your kid not need you anymore.
When we finally arrived back at home in TN, after 1700 miles and traveling through 6 states, I realized that I had spent the entire week worrying about her, and how she was feeling, and what sadness she was dealing with as she moved from home to college, from TN to NJ, from the dream of a thing to the reality of it. I hadn’t at all been thinking about my own grief, about how much loss I would feel walking back into the house where she’s lived for 18 years and seeing the ghost of her around every corner.
Her favorite candy on the kitchen counter, half-opened and waiting for her to dive back in.
Jewelry sitting on her bathroom sink that she won’t put on in the morning.
Drinks in the refrigerator that she put there just last week, so that they would be cold for her when she needed them and now are impossibly far away.
When I woke up this morning, one of my first half-asleep thoughts was “I wonder what time she got home last night” only to remember that she’s 13 hours away and not in her bed across the hall from my office.
All of this sadness swirls in my head along with bottomless pride in her, and how far she’s gone and the knowledge that she’s doing what she loves and needs to do with her life. I am so, so happy for her, and by any objective measure this is all exactly what should be happening.
I really wasn’t prepared for the grief. But I know it will pass, and left behind will be the pride and the joy of watching her find the courageous, talented, brilliant woman inside herself.
Right now, though? This grief part really sucks.
