“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.
