Toronto Star, Canada – Oct 1, 2014
Oct 01, 2014 04:30 AM
Andrea Gordon
Family issues reporter
Teenage boys take up so much space. And then they go, leaving a hole so big it threatens to swallow you.
One of mine departed this fall for university – the first in the family to spread his wings and glide from the precipice. He was ready. So were we – so we thought. Our crammed house, overrun with testosterone, sprawling limbs, giant Adidas heaped at the door, can barely contain the raw energy of four kids on the cusp.
But still.
The windup to the day of departure seems to take forever, lulling you into thinking it will never come. The information sessions, campus tours, pressing decisions follow one after another. Months of deadlines. Will he pass calculus? Where’s Jeremy going? What about Dylan?
Then it’s on the horizon. And there’s a rush of assembling towels and pillows and USB cords, changing cellphone numbers, choosing meal plans, endless circuits of goodbyes to friends going off in different directions.
Parents cram too: “Remember how lucky you are. Make the most of it.” “Look out for your friends at parties.” “Don’t forget you can go to the health centre anytime.”
My acknowledgment comes in the form of an indulgent smile. A sigh. “Yeah, we covered that.”
Best to remember the words of a wise friend: “It’s time to let go. The damage is done.”
And suddenly there you are. Helping them unpack, hugging them goodbye, trying not to give way to the uncharacteristic crack in your voice.
“Mum, it’s only till Thanksgiving. I was gone longer than that this summer.”
But I can tell this boy of mine, who has always felt each rite of passage deeply, understands this time it’s different. That things will never be the same.
Then you’re on the highway, weeping as your mind watches a PowerPoint of the childhood that whizzed by at Internet speed.
Images of his first birthday, the toothless grin, fists planted in the cake. Of him marching up the steps to kindergarten, never looking back. The first soccer goal. His squeaky voice reading Grandma and the Pirates to the little brothers. The saxophone solo that still makes you tingle with pride.
Our first-born has always moved in a swirl of energy, like Pigpen and his cloud of dust, hip-checking, guffawing, bellowing exuberance. Every balled-up pair of socks is a mock soccer ball to be dribbled through the house. No silence is too precious to be broken with the wail of a sax or a brotherly taunt.
After he’s gone, happily ensconced in Orientation Week, we are the ones most disoriented.
I’ve heard it said that the family unit is like a mobile. Move one dangling piece and the rest are sent lurching. Ours has settled into a gentle sway. But we haven’t rebalanced.
At the dinner table, we switch seats, trying to offset the strangeness of the empty spot.
Heading upstairs to bed on a Saturday evening, it’s still jarring to pass the front door and realize, oh yeah, we can lock it. We needn’t sleep with one ear open for the sound of him clomping onto the porch, slipping up to whisper good night.
I miss the comfort of those nights, with all the chicks settled into the nest, knowing that for the next eight hours, everyone will be safe and secure, the pieces all in place.
Friends ask about the transition, then add, “Oh yeah, no big deal, you’ve got three more.”
But each child-rearing experience is as unique as each child. And there’s no getting around the fact that this one is pretty much over.
Sometimes it gets you like a sucker punch. On a Saturday afternoon in the middle of errands, a jazz song comes on the car radio. It’s a tune his stage band played at their final spring concert. I find myself sniffling in the parking lot, aching for just one more of those magical nights. All those beaming, budding teenagers ready to burst across the threshold. The air ripe with possibility, the world beckoning.
Their growing up can help you come to terms with your own. As we bid goodbye, exactly 30 years after I arrived as a student on the same campus, I am blessed with a flood of memories. It is his gift to me, this unexpected reconnection and peacemaking with a past discarded long ago.
Experienced parents say it’s always hardest at the beginning. Then the offspring come home for that first weekend, bringing their mess, lugging laundry, eating the cupboards bare and driving you crazy. When they leave again, you’re over it.
In a few days, there will be wet towels and T-shirts three-deep on my son’s now pristine bedroom floor. Half-empty water bottles will be scattered like bowling pins. There will be wails of “there’s nothing to eat in this house,” ceaseless thundering of piano keys and sibling antics resembling the WWE. In a few days, he will be driving me crazy.
But when he leaves again, don’t expect me to be over it. Not yet. At least not until the next one leaves.
