When They Leave Home
I climbed into an Uber last week in Fort Lauderdale on my way to the airport, ready to head for home, a stiff breeze pounding the palm trees, the sun trying to decide whether or not to come out from behind the clouds. I was a little nervous about flying up through that boiling sky. My Uber driver’s minivan was brand-new and immaculate, with green flags covering the front row headrests.
The driver was quiet at first, until I asked him how long he’d been driving. Turns out he was from Jamaica and had lived in New York City for a few years before moving south.
“Do you like it here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s okay.” He paused, then continued in his thick Jamaican accent. “Everyone here is too stressed out. Strung tight. People shouting and getting upset. Back in Jamaica it wasn’t like that. Much more relaxed.”
“So why’d you move here?” I asked.
He laughed this time, a bright smile. “My wife came to visit her parents in the Bronx, and she called me back in Jamaica and said I should come and join her. I told her no way, I was staying in Jamaica, it’s too cold in New York. But then she said she wasn’t coming back, so if I wanted to be with her and the kids, I needed to move to America.”
“So you moved,” I said, smiling.
“I moved,” he said, laughing again. “What was I supposed to do?”
“And then you moved to Florida. You don’t mind the heat? It’s so hot here in the summer.”
He looked at me in the rearview mirror as if I had lost my mind.
“The heat? The heat? The heat is wonderful. I love the heat. It can’t be hot enough for me.”
He told me about his children and asked about mine. I told him about each of them, explained that our oldest was 20 and our youngest was 7. He marveled at this.
Fifteen minutes later, we were at the airport. As I climbed out, he rolled down the passenger window and called to me.
“Hey, make sure you take care of all those kids!” And then he laughed his booming Jamaican laugh, and then he drove away.
Our oldest two children were home from college for about 24 hours this past weekend so they could attend the wedding of my youngest sister, their aunt. She is 16 years younger than me, so closer in age to them than to me. It was such a beautiful day: happy tears and a couple that kept staring dreamily at each other, capped off by food and wine and a night of dancing. There are 16 grandkids on my side of the family, from 21 all the way down to preschool age, and nearly every one was out there on the dance floor. The older ones have gotten quite good, and with every new song they erupted and insisted us older folk join them.
On Sunday morning, the day after the wedding, we sat talking with our oldest two in the living room, catching up on our their lives, classes, friends, and plans for the spring. We lounged lazily on the couch and drank coffee and sat there in the gray, January light that fell through the windows.
Then, too soon, they were packing their things into the car, driving away.
I went in the living room and read Susan Cooper for a little while, then took a nap, dreaming of the Greenwitch and battles between Light and Dark.
When these oldest two left for college in back-to-back years, I managed to just about sort of convince myself that nothing huge was changing. Sure, they’d be away a lot, but they’d still come home, we’d still see them regularly, they’d live here in the summers. Nothing new, just a small adjustment. Yada yada. And they do still come back. We do still share the same house from time to time.
But things are changing. Things have changed. There’s no going back.
This isn’t their home anymore, not really. I mean, it’s a place they come to recharge, to gather themselves, regroup. They still have bedrooms here. I hope it feels like a peaceful place, a haven. But their home is with their friends now, their home is out in the world, and while this will hopefully always be a place they come back to, it feels more and more like they’re visiting.
Maybe I felt it more this weekend because my little sister was married, and I considered my parents, waking up Sunday morning, realizing that everything had changed for them, too. She won’t run to them as often as she has in the past; she won’t need them.
I pictured them waking up and eating breakfast together, quietly going about their day. For thirty years she’s more or less leaned on them for a lot of things, as we all did. And she’s been very independent for a decade or more now. But still. Your youngest and final child getting married is a big change.
This is good. This is parenting. This is hard. This is parenting.
Lucy FaceTimed me from college at 10:45 Sunday night. I answered even though I was drifting off, because I will answer a call from my kids anytime, anywhere.
But she could tell by my face in the dark screen that I had nearly been asleep.
“Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry! Did I wake you up?”
“No, no. Not at all. No problem. Is everything okay? What do you need?”
“We want to watch a movie but I bought it on your account. Can you give me the password that came to your phone?”
I could hear her friends, all of them laughing in the background. “Mr. Smucker!” one of them cried out. “I love your beard! This is the Mr. Smucker fan club!”
I had to smile as I gave her the password. I can still just about remember those days, barely, when an evening was just beginning at 11:00 p.m., when life was the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
“Thanks, Dad! Love you!” she shouted above the din before hanging up, flying her way back into this brand new, wonderful world she’s creating, a world of new friends and future possibilities and discovering a new self, a world that is completely and entirely apart from us.
I turned off the kitchen light and walked up the creaky old stairs. I peeked back the hall—our two youngest were asleep. Maile stirred when I crawled into bed and asked what was up, and I told her.
“Did it sound like she’s having fun?”
“She’s having a blast.”
A few moments.
“It was really wonderful having them here,” she said quietly.
I nodded in the dark. I reached under the covers and took her hand, and we laid there for a minute, probably both thinking about how strange life is, how strange parenting is, how sad and happy you can be, all at once, that your very own children are making their way in the world.
The house was very quiet, in that moment.
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This is so poignant, Shawn; it really touched me. Our kids are 19 and 22, so I get it. I think your phone call from Lucy demonstrated that home, more than anything, is a who, rather than a physical place, you know. You and Maile will always be Lucy's home, where her heart and soul was born and grown and will continue to find comfort and support and love, no matter what her age. Our kids know that that safe place - home- is always here for them. You and Maile have created that safe space for your kids and they will continue to come back to it in different ways as the years pass and they face various challenges - sometimes challenges as simple as needing a password. Lol. That said, I know it's not quite the same as having them physically under your roof!).
I love reading these processes as you go through them. So much changes when your kids are 18-25ish, and I just feel like we weren’t warned! It’s very good and extremely hard.