All through the summer, it seems, I\’ve done nothing but attend graduation parties .. .high-school seniors leaving to go to college.  My own daughter joins Santa Clara University this weekend.  The excitement is high, but the reality is also bittersweet. Why?  Because, come Monday, I\’m left with an empty house.

For starters, I\’m pouring my emotions on the page so that I don\’t have to slobber all over her chest when it\’s time to say goodbye. . .

The first time I ever became a mother

I waited for the thunderclap from the heavens above

The ground to tremble and shake

To herald the arrival of my darling little cherub. . .

 

But no, it was very disappointing

 A big let-down, if truth be told.

 

I’d been admonished all my growing years

“Wait till you become a mother,

You’ll know how it feels”

My mom had twisted that knife every time I rebelled. . .

 

I waited for the outpouring of love,

The blessedness of grace to embrace me as I gazed down at the

Twisting, writhing red-faced seven-pounder

Who was screaming his lungs out like a banshee

 

The way his toes twisted reminded me of any ugly frog’s webbed feet

Is this what the craze is all about, I wondered?

Is everybody in the world daft?

 

The never-ending suckling at my breast

The endless rounds of clean-up; foul-smelling waste and diaper changes

The care and the nurture; the years of giving up your life; your wants and needs,

There’s no babbling joy in this, I pondered.

 

And yet, now, as my last one prepares to leave home

and I trade my busy, harried world of mom to two for that of an empty nester

I realize how true it is. . .

As someone once said, “To have a child is to forever have your heart go walking outside your body.”

 

I feel scattered, I’m coming undone

I say to my daughter now, even though she can’t comprehend it

Your life is starting for real; I have begun the long letting-go,

A chapter has ended, and another has begun.