Last Flight from the Nest

My youngest daughter will be departing this coming Sunday to enter college five hours distance from our home.

She was a surprise baby. A big surprise. I recall envisioning, the day my wife told me that she was with child, the sailboat that I had hoped to purchase disappear forever over the horizon never to reappear.

I feigned happiness about the pregnancy, but was secretly horrified by the event. My older son was 23 and my older daughter 21 at the time. I was 45 years old, and of course realized that I would be 64 when she began college. Well, that time has come.

Of course I thought she was a most beautiful baby when she was born, and she quickly became the center of my life. I cannot now imagine not having had her in my life these past 18 years. Our relationship grew even closer when her mother was diagnosed with cancer when my daughter was 9 years old. My wife died 18 months later.

I had no family living within 400 miles and wondered how I would get her to school, to dance lessons, to soccer practice, and later to volleyball and all the myriad activities that come and go along the way. I'm not sure how we managed, but we did, and we had a good time doing most of it. Not all, but most.

It took three attempts to pass the driver's license test. She auditioned for modeling agencies 3 times and was rejected because she was one inch short of the minimum. I would not have allowed her to model in any event, but I had to endure the tears and drama engendered by the rejection all the same.

The existence of boys, boys with the same mentality I must have displayed at 16, added to the horror. That horror was mitigated to a degree because I sent her to a Catholic girl's school. The university she will be attending has 18,000 students and more that 9000 of them are boys.

Horror again rears it's ugly head. I dislike all boys aged 14 through 25.

She is going through Rush to see if she wants to be in a sorority. All I can imagine in my mind's eye, over and over again, is the movie Animal House.

I know that the feelings swirling around in my head and heart are much like the feelings being experienced by thousands of parents who are about to send their last child to college far from home. There is one difference. I am 64 years old, just like I knew I would be. I think it would be easier if I was 45 again; still, I managed to take care of her for 18 years, to teach her lessons that are important and to learn from her. She has enriched my life substantially. I would not trade her for an 38 foot sailboat, a yacht, or anything else.

The surprise baby turned out to be a wonderful surprise.

Comments

[John Lawson]

Great post Jimmie!