Yeah, I’m not quite ready to let my son go, yet. But the day draws nigh. Nigh!
We are three days from “move in” day, and no amount of cheery videos featuring the Anderson University football team lugging boxes and bedding up three flights of stairs is making me feel better.
I know—this is a survivable life event, based on the fact that no one has actually expired from sending their firstborn child to college.
I know—college is a good thing, a true beginning, for my child, for the Class of 2016. He is three days away from meeting lifelong friends, mentors, and professors who will change his life.
I know—he is headed straight for an experience which will fuel his passions and be a guiding light in his life.
He will have professors speak into his life and say, ‘Hey, you have a gift for music’, or ‘I see this in you,’ or ‘This particular thing, it’s not your thing. Why don’t you go in this direction instead?’ This happened to me in college, lo, these 25 years ago now. I was a broadcasting major who figured out that broadcasting was a technical field, involving plugs and wires and input/output types of choices that bewildered and befuddled me. I emerged from those four years a print journalist, having discovered that my true gifts lay in the written word.
“You can make a living as a writer, you know,” my journalism professor, “Cal,” said to me as we walked with the other members of “The Moody Student” newspaper staff, on our way to Oprah’s now-defunct restaurant in downtown Chicago. Our goal? To celebrate our award-winning year, and to spend some of the sheaves of filthy lucre earned by selling ads. (Our business manager, Francis, from Singapore, was a genius at getting local businesses to cough up cash for ads.)
Those words are etched in my soul.
Who will engrave words into my son’s spirit? I am betting more than one person will.
“Remember,” my friend Cynthia, an English professor and writer, said, “there are professors waiting to love Jonah, and teach him and help him grow into his potential.”
Those words, maybe more than anything I have heard from friends and loved ones, hit the mark. Because they rang so true for me.
Dr. Rosalie deRosset, a fierce, shaping force, taught me to be a critical thinker and to not take a backseat to anyone because of my gender.
When Dr. Rupert Simms, a Bible/black history professor, gave me an ‘A’, I knew I had earned it with my every corpuscle (One of our cats was named Rupert).
Professor Cal Haines brought his friend, an editor from Rolling Stone magazine, into our journalism class one day. This Jewish editor did not condescend to our class of floral-wearing, mostly fundamentalist Christian students, some of whom were immediately suspicious of him. “Your faith is a gift that you can bring to the world through your writing,” this decidedly non-Christian guest speaker said, passionately, sincerely. And something in me was lit, not just by the guest speaker’s words, but the way Professor Haines beamed at me when I raised my hand and asked a zinger of a question, based on a Rolling Stone piece his friend had written. (Our newspaper staff office, naturally, had a fish named Cal.)
What will be lit for my son, for his friends and classmates, some of whom I hold dear, some of whom I have watched grow from four-year-olds to the thresholds of their future lives? Who will they name their future pets after?
(That’s a loss, too, by the way: the Class of 2016. This beloved group of classmates are all scattering like light into the world. When I show up next at the high school, and I scoop up spoonfuls of Tetrazzini for hot lunch, that group of kids won’t be there anymore. They will be in colleges all over the US, and on missions trips to New Zealand, and even going to community college downtown. But they won’t be there, and I will miss their faces.)
I know—Jonah will be in great hands, carefully chosen hands, and there are great things ahead of him in the next four years as a music business major.
But I will miss him so. I will miss his crooked smile, our discussions about politics and current events, and the soundtrack of our home, which is his guitar.The day we drop him off at college will be the day the music dies (except for the 11-year-old’s oboe—that will remain alive, soooo alive).
I know–I’m being dramatic–the music won’t die, as in the song and the plane crash that killed iconic musicians–but it will be absent. Quiet. Missed. Except for the oboe, of course. We will not miss that for some years to come.
I will miss our family of five, this sturdy, treasured entity we have built together over 18 years.
I will miss our life together and the dynamics as they are.
I will marvel—again!—that HOLY COW that went by fast! And I will wish for one more day with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little boy to play mini sticks with, to read “Hiccup the Seasick Viking” to, to sing “Jingle Bells” in all seasons with.
Did I do enough for him?
Is he ready to face the world outside our home?
Will the world appreciate him like I do?
Rob Lowe calls his life with his family “the world as I loved it” in his achingly tender and funny essay—called “Unprepared”– about his son, Matthew, leaving their nest.
The world as I loved it is ending, even though they tell me I will love future worlds, too.
I know—I have much to be thankful for. He’s alive and healthy; so am I. No one died, or went to rehab or prison. I CAN help him pick out bedding and pay for his toothpaste and his thrift store mug, which he thrust out to me in the store and said, “for hot things.” He will come back and the music will come alive again, and we will be a family of five again.
Everything will be the same, and nothing will, ever again.
It’s a true beginning for my son, and a true ending for me. But also, maybe, a beginning.
It will hurt on move-in day, and for a while afterwards. But I know, I’ll be proud. I know, despite my real grief at this passing of an era, I’ll be excited to watch the next chapter of my child’s life unfold.
I will see him take a foothold on his new path.
I will witness him taking flight in the direction of his beautiful dreams.
Lorilee, Beautifully written! Your mum-heart expresses the tension so many of us women feel at this important transition. BTW, so 80s, the Rob Lowe quote. Love it!!
Thanks, Heather! Rob Lowe is actually an exceptional writer!!! 🙂
Amen. Thank you!
You’re welcome, Jayne! (My middle name is Jayne!). One more year and one more pole vaulting season for you!
Ah, such beauty and angst in your words. The day is near when we drive my sweet girl to her new adventure. It’s wonderful and helpful to me how you pointed out all the goodness and opportunity awaiting our babies (they’re always our babies) as they take this first step out into the world. I’m praying this is a smooth transition and a really good one for our children and for all us mothers with stinging eyes and cracking hearts.
“Stinging eyes and cracking hearts..” Well said, Melanie! They are our babies, forever.AND there is goodness and opportunity for them in this next chapter.
Ahhhh…my heart broke again just a little bit. I so resonate with this as I send my bright pink-haired, one-of-a-kind, only-child daughter to college. So true. But I also loved your memories of professors (some whom I shared) who believe in us, shape us, stretch us, grow us. Godspeed our loved ones. We wish you all the best.
Godspeed to your pink-haired girl! I am excited to see where these bright lights end up in this world!
Beautiful post!!! I just dropped my daughter, my first born, off at Anderson University on Monday. Bittersweet indeed!! Best wishes to you tomorrow!
Yeah AU! What a wonderful place. It did my heart good to see the campus again, and to see my son as a college student there! Every blessing to you and your daughter at AU!
Beautifully expressed, Lorilee. From a mom who is trying to fill in the space left by her own Moody Bible student, I thank you. I appreciated how you drew from your own experience to inform the vision you have for your son. It very much speaks to God’s faithfulness. Praying for all the parents and their children represented here.
Thanks, Amanda! Amazing how many memories this life event has stirred for me of my own college years. May she be blessed as I was during my four wonderful years!
As an AU grad, current Anderson resident, and mom who sent three kids off to AU from our former home in Michigan, I can relate! Best wishes to you and your son.
That was lovely Lorilee. I may have to name a cat Lorilee. I miss, always, the sound of a violin practicing while I cook supper. Always. But then there is this young baritone, who will not stop singing Doo Wop music at the top of his lungs. And I now know how lonesome I will be to have someone ask if they can please spray paint things they found in the garage, and use them as decoration . . . I will show this to the college professor in the house, too. You are right– It is fun to ask about their classes and to listen to them talk about their classes and professors, and to watch them grow. But I strongly suggest that you secretly or not so secretly make a recording of that guitar playing in the next 24 hours, so you can have it while you wash dishes . . .
Thank you for the written words of how my heart is feeling. I miss my son and only can pray for a successful out come. I know God is watching over Trey and Jonah..