brushfire"This, yes, this, it was always like this." -Stanley Koehler
REFLECTIONS OF AN EMPTY NESTER
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“How far from me my children built again.”
This is a line from a poem, “The Blue Umbrella,” by my father, the poet Stanley Koehler. The poem depicts a family on a beach, the father dozing under the shade of the umbrella while his children build sandcastles by the water's edge. When he awakes, the sun has dropped in the sky, the shadows lengthened, and his children, following the ebb of the tide and the retreating waves, have distanced themselves from him. It is of course a metaphor for parenthood — a process that is at once gradual and instant at the same time. That is how I feel about our last child departing for college. “Will you cry when you drop Jared off?” my daughters asked me. I replied that I didn't cry when either of them left; that for me it was a happy time, a time for celebration, not tears. I'm sure they were imagining their father and me driving away, the tears streaming down our faces while our son grew smaller in the rear view mirror. It’s a romantic image, but not necessarily how it happens. My friends describe crying at unexpected times and, in one case, at all times. For some it is the anticipation of the event. For others, it's the aftermath. It could be while you're folding a faded and worn and particularly familiar shirt at the dryer. One friend said she got emotional every time she passed her daughter's (uncharacteristically tidy) bedroom. There are a lot of emotions involved — nostalgia, melancholy, apprehension, regret — but sadness is not one of them, at least for me. There is also triumph — we did it! — relief, gratitude, excitement, joy. The process is gradual, like the receding tide, the sinking of the sun below the horizon. The transformation, on the other hand, is immediate. One second they are there; the next they are gone. “Sun, that will drive them thence,” — the poem continues — “these hours undo me.” A version of this appeared in the Grosse Pointe News.
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In the closing scene of the final Harry Potter movie, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” a grown-up Ron and Hermione, accompanied by Harry, are gathered on the train platform seeing their children off to Hogwarts. Standing wistfully at his father's side as the train pulls out of the station is their youngest child, a redhead like Ron. My son – the youngest of our three, also a redhead – watched this movie with his oldest sister. “See, Emma?” he said at the movie's conclusion. “That's what it's like to watch your older siblings go off to college before you.” I have read endless laments from parents about seeing children off to college – whether it's the first, changing your family dynamic forever, or your last, marking you as an empty nester. I have even read about the impact it can have on the family dog. But rarely do we hear about this experience from the point of view of the sibling left behind. Our son wrote his college essay about waiting for the day when our 1996 red Volvo, our “teenager” car passed from child to child, would finally become his. He had viewed a lot of life from the back seat of that car, watching his sisters take the wheel, assume responsibility for the road ahead and navigate the twists and turns as they drove off into independence. (Okay, I have driven that metaphor to the ground – he did a better job of it, honest.) In some ways, his sisters paved the way for him along that road (okay, I couldn't resist one more). His preschool, elementary school and high school were familiar to him when he first entered their doors, teachers recognized his last name, and even his father and I relaxed a bit as he explored known territory. While his sisters were still home, he slipped under the radar, the quietest at the dinner table. After they left, the spotlight shone on him and he blossomed. We enjoyed getting to know this young man he was becoming. But we didn't take time to think about how watching each sister leave, while he was left behind, might have impacted him. I, of all people, should have. I’m the youngest of five and experienced each of my siblings, one by one, leaving home for college. Being the one left behind, however, may account to some degree for my resilience to change. We all have our strengths, and this is one of mine. I have adapted fairly well to major life changes — the births of each of my children, a move to a new town and new job years ago and most recently a change in careers. Perhaps it will result in my son's adaptability as well. He has already experienced several days in the life of a college student, having visited each of his sisters at their respective schools and spent time at the library, the dining hall, the gym and possibly even a party or two. As the last to leave, he may have the easiest adjustment, as he has imagined himself leaving many times now. When the time comes my husband and I, like Ron and Hermione, will be standing on that proverbial railway platform, waving him off as the train takes him around the bend and out of view. |
Mary Anne BrushJournalist, fiction writer, wife and mother |