“This has been the summer of my dreams,” I say to my daughter Ally.
“That’s pathetic,” she replies.
Maybe. But it’s true. In the three months Ally’s been home between graduating from college and leaving for a job teaching English in Spain, we’ve been each other’s best companion. Long walks, picking blackberries, lattes, massages, cooking side by side, a mani-pedi to mark the dwindling days of flip-flops and of our time together. We’ve even managed some good conversations until I inevitably mess up with questions like, “What if you fall in love and decide to stay in Spain forever?“
I dreamed of such a summer four years earlier, in the fleeting weeks between high school and college. But back then my dream was Ally’s nightmare. So she stayed out late with friends, sleeping in till the coast was clear from my incessant offers of ensnaring lattes.
Four years away have allowed Ally to come back not only with a college degree, but with an independent identity that makes our bond less threatening. Free lattes? Bring them on!
Our first separation was a dress rehearsal. This time’s for real. Ally’s going off to adulthood, not college.
Songs from Fiddler on the Roof keep coursing through my mind:
“Is this the little girl I carried?”
”May the Lord protect and defend you.”
Mostly I feel like Tevye on the station platform, seeing Hodel off to Siberia. I know it’s not as dramatic as “God alone knows when we shall see each other again.” For one thing, the shtetl lacked Skype. But the pang still runs deep.
The day of Ally’s departure arrives. She navigates the ticket counter, hoping the agent will turn a blind eye to her bag’s extra weight. It’s hard to move abroad for under 50 pounds. The agent waves Ally through, and we sit awhile, steeling ourselves for goodbye. I repeat something I heard on the radio, about imagining someone you sorely miss in the next room. “I’m going to think of you in the next room,” I say as we hug. To distract ourselves, we search out one last latte. It helps wash away the lump in my throat.
Last free latte–at least for awhile!
I watch as Ally goes through security. It’s hard to see through the plate glass that separates us. Between the throng of travelers and the reflections of people waving goodbye, I soon lose track of her. Suddenly I feel the same panic that overwhelmed me when Ally was three, and we lost her in a museum. As my husband and I frantically searched the nearby exhibits, I glanced from the balcony into the lobby. There was Ally, calmly talking to a guard, unaware that she was lost.
She’ll be fine now, too.
I hope I can say the same for myself.
Another beautiful post! It is hard to have the chick-a-dees off in other time zones, much less other countries. So glad to read that your daughter have you those three glorious months last summer. I’m hoping for three glorious minutes (really days) when I’m traveling on the east coast with my 18 year old daughter for her spring break. Think I should load my Starbucks card!
Thanks, Heidi. I definitely think that Starbucks cards and other heart-through-stomach methods are key. Open wallets, open hearts (within reason of course). Good luck with the visit-!
Okay, so it took me a few days to read this one. Maybe there is a reason for this. Today is my eldest son’s birthday (44-hard to believe) and each year on this date, I remember the moment he was born–the moment I realized in fact this was a “real” person, not just a lump. Anyway, suffice it to say that revisiting feelings I have, and have had, about my own children’s comings and goings (mostly goings) was hard to allow myself to do. I knew, just reading the first few lines, that this is what this piece would do to me.
But perhaps even more importantly, I LOVE your hair :) And it was your hair that caught my attention even before I got the rest of the photo’s significance. Lovely to see!!!
Thanks, Ann. Happy birthday to your son!
Beautifully written and I feel for you. My daughter’s in-laws live in the UK, and my deepest fear is that they will end up living there, too. Bad enough she’s in NY, and my step-daughter and her husband are in NM. He’s military, so they could end up overseas, too. The thing I want most is to have all my kids together, and I don’t know when that might happen again.
Thanks, Kim. I, too, always feel best when everybody is under the same roof–at least until the mess gets to me!
Simply beautiful.
Thanks, Elin.
Absolutely love this, Lorrie. Brought tears to my eyes but also gives me hope that I can have the same kind of great relationship with my daughter when she’s an adult as you do with yours.
Thanks so much, Dorothy. I’d say you’re well on your way!
My daughter is about to turn 16 and I am dreading the day I have to send her off.
I feel for you, Bridget. Hopefully this will be one of the many times when the dread is worse than the reality (after a decent interval, of course!).
We hold them close , then let them go. They return, then leave again;each time with a new found cloak of their identity. And we must accommodate our own sense of ourselves as mother each time. Mother to the child in the next room., no matter how many miles away it is. Beautiful piece Lorrie. Bon Voyage to both of you.
Thanks, Gloria. Nicely put!
How sweet!
My baby sister just graduated from college and is staying with us for the time being. I guess you could say that we are her Spain. Such an exciting time to be in the space of life where there’s so much to discover!
Thanks. May I send my daughter to you instead of to Spain?
Genius plan! It’s practically the same thing. Lots of noise. People up all hours of the night. Cobblestone streets (they’re really just Legos but the effect of walking across them is the same!)