Our granddaughter has lived with us eleven years. Tomorrow we drive to college outside Atlanta with mountains of stuff in two cars. We’ve all weathered tough times and plenty of heartache, but we’ve come out wiser, with our love stronger. She is an extraordinary young woman.
They’re all going to college!
Agnes Scott College
I was finishing a chapter of my novel (I think I am the slowest writer in the world) when I got distracted looking for a version of Bridge Over Troubled Water that I could share with her. I have always thought of this as a song from one friend to another, in the Lean on Me category. But my singing partner and I were working on it last week and came to the third verse, which Paul Simon wrote in the studio because his producer insisted on one more verse: “Sail on silver girl, sail on by, your time has come to shine, all your dreams are on their way, see how they shine… “ I controlled myself as we practiced, but broke down the next morning, when I cried and cried.
Photo by Johannes Plenio from Pexels
I’ve never before suffered from empty nest syndrome. My feelings have always been closer to “Free at last!” But this time, maybe because I’m older and more tender-hearted, maybe because she has overcome so many obstacles, I seem to be heading straight into grief. We will certainly miss her – she is extremely lively and funny, and at dinner I sometimes have trouble eating because we laugh so much.
We lose our children over and over as they grow – the round-headed baby with the huge eyes, the three-year-old exuberantly climbing the monkey bars, the nine-year-old off to the father=daughter dance with Grandpa, wearing the rose corsage he gave her, the eleven year old posing so proudly in her safety patrol belt – they and so many more are long gone, leaving nothing but memories and photographs.
My life will be my own again; I won’t be responsible for anyone but me. My time is my own; I hope I won’t squander it. In the years of raising her I have become a worrier, an anxious woman. (It’s possible I always was, but I don’t think so.) I am quite sure I won’t recover entirely, but based on past experience I’m also sure that there’s a fair amount of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ When a child is far away most of the daily troubles resolve themselves before we know about them.
Worry makes wrinkles
I began this essay a few days ago. Since I began writing it I’ve been an explosive mix of grief, excitement, worry, pride. Raising children is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.