It's an adventure and it's exciting, but it's also poignant and just a little bit scary. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't, but if you could measure the level of emotion in the air for these days, it would be deep into the red zone.
There is a ritual in Boston and many other places that takes place every year around the end of May and the first of June. That's when literally thousands of college students dump all of their collected dorm and apartment paraphernalia into the streets to be picked up and sold or given away. Desks, chairs, beds, lamps, whatever. Boston is a huge college town, so this act is a bonanza for area homeless shelters and thrift shops.
There is a different, but related, ritual that is happening right now. It is the ritual of an equally large number of cars with weepy parents and anxious 18-year-olds driving down Francis Ave. in Cambridge, or Commonwealth in Boston, or wherever, and letting go of someone they have known and lived with, literally all of his or her entire life. It's an adventure and it's exciting, but it's also poignant and just a little bit scary. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't, but if you could measure the level of emotion in the air for these days, it would be deep into the red zone.
I remember doing this with my kids back in their days. Actually, Kevin and Stanley, the two oldest, were not as big a leap. They both went to the University of Oklahoma, which was only about 15 miles away from where I lived at the time, and I was able to see them now and then for a lot of their time there. With Kevin, it was even less of a break, because, out of a freakish coincidence, I happened to be at OU working on a master’s in economics at the exact time that he was there working on a BA in economics, so we actually passed each other on campus on occasion (a little discomforting, by the way, but don't tell Kevin).
I think my biggest dip into the red zone of separation emotion was when Karla left. She went off to a little private university in Memphis, Tennessee, that specialized in languages and foreign relations, and then after that she traveled the world, even working for a while for the French government. We went for about three years without seeing her. Those were tough times.
Of course, I didn't know all of that on that day when she was bundling up her life and squeezing it into a car to drive off for orientation, but inside I still sensed that a huge break was taking place.
Last week, I happened to be in front of Rockefeller Hall at Harvard (where I once did time myself) and I saw a dozen or so cars come and go with parents dropping off their offspring. Usually, the son or daughter was cool about it -- for kids, excitement tends to swallow up fear in the beginning -- but the mother was visibly emotional. The father, however, remained stoic. He's the guy, after all, and can't show emotions because it's not a guy thing. But after their little girl was dutifully set up in her room and they were alone in the parking lot, the husband grabbed his wife's hand and held it long and tight. I suppose it seemed right to be strong in front of the daughter, but when they were alone, he needed strength.
When I saw Karla for the last time, I didn't do a very good job at that stoic thing either. I think my voice was relatively calm, but my eyes were watery, and they gave me away. She was sweet about it. She didn't make a comment about it, but just gave me a kiss and told me that she'd miss me and would see me again soon. And then the future of the entire world as we knew it suddenly changed forever. And it has never changed back, and it never will.
I remember when I made that big break. I put all of my clothes and books and bedding -- and a banjo -- into a tiny Volkswagen "Beetle" and drove thousands of miles to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and I did it while my parents were at work, because I was young and stupid and didn't realize that they would want to be a part of the ritual. We had dinner that night and I chatted about everyday affairs as though nothing was changing. And then after dinner I gathered up the last of my things and drove all night long to my new home. It never occurred to me at the time that my excitement was their loss. I can only imagine now, decades later, that they probably would have wanted to stand there on the driveway for a long while after I left, holding hands and dabbing their eyes at the rupture that had just changed their lives as parents.
They are both gone now and looking back I wish I had given them a better goodbye. And one of these days Karla and Stanley and Kevin are all going to be sending off their own "babies" with a similar mix of sadness and sorrow and excitement and thrill. It's the cycle of life and it will never change, no matter why they are leaving or how far they go. Eighteen years are far too few to have in your life someone you love with all of your being and might, but to hold on to them would be worse. Holding close, then letting go; holding close, letting go. Again and again. It happens to those who have kids and even those who do not. It's universal. It breaks you and it heals you. It is what moves life forward whether you want it to or not, and if you allow it, it keeps you from becoming stagnant. It's sad and it's painful, but it is also energizing and creating. It's one of the things that helps us learn what it means to be alive.
Posted 24th September 2002 by Stan G Duncan
