Two Floods

Youngest just returned to college. What a flood of emotion I sensed as we worked our way to his car.

We’re close, as you might expect, and the idea of another couple of weeks being involved long distance is not my preferred way of being involved in his life (even though I’m sure it’s a good growing thing). And, it’s not the specific things we do together, it’s the hanging out that I’m already thinking about.

I remember the same sense when Eldest returned to school, but it was, as you know, a full 5 minutes away. In fact, I passed by her dorm on the way to work, so she didn’t seem far away even though she had her own independent universe at school, and I usually waited to be invited into it. Just knowing she was minutes away made it less of a recognizable issue for me.

And, it’s not like I’m saddened by a sentimental sense that they are grown up. I love the fact that they are becoming more independent, and I think we get along very well as my role changes to that of a mentor rather than a director of sorts. I just like both of them as human beings and enjoy our lives running parallel with many intersections.

It reminds me of another emotional time when my Grandparents (Grandmother and Big Daddy, accent big) came to visist us after we (me and my parents and sisters) first returned to the “States” from being overseas for several years.

We had been in France and Morocco and Grandmother & Big Daddy, who would drive across a continent and back from dawn to dark to see us, just couldn’t make themselves get in an airplane to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

In secret conversations one would whisper-hint that it was the other who didn’t want to fly ("it's your Big Daddy, you know flying would make him nervous"), but actually I think it was both of them. There was just something about being in a confined space for hours and hours over ocean as far as you could see in any direction that was disquieting to these two members of the generation that literally watched us go from horse and buggy to moon rockets.

Because "someone" wouldn't fly, we didn’t see them for the several years we were out of the country. We kept in touch by letters, and as I recall, one or maybe two intercontinental phone calls (they were either rare or substantially expensive, and I wrote about one in my blog somewhere).

Anyway, we hadn’t fully unpacked in our new home on base in Charleston (where one house looked just like another) before they make the long drive from Jackson for as they called it, “a good long visit.” After a couple of weeks of sleeping on the "couch-that-makes-into-a-bed," they had to return home because, as Big Daddy said, “Grandmother needs to get back to her house plants.”

That morning, we all got up early, moped around a bit helping them pack and fold up the "couch-that-makes-into-a-bed," promising to get to Jackson “real soon.”

I saw tears without shame in Big Daddy’s eyes as he started his car. He didn't even look away as they ran down his cheek. "I love you. We'll be back. Come see us."

We stood like monks at prayer in our bathrobes waving from the driveway as they drove away, and as they rounded the corner and drove out of sight, we all slowly filed back into the house to finish the Grandmother-breakfast and digest the idea that they were gone.

Dad finished putting on his uniform of the day (you remember, blue with silver buttons and insignias).

Mom stacked the dishes for later.

Sibling 1 and Sibling 2 wandered back and forth to their room gathering their school supplies, and I sat alone in the kitchen finishing eggs and bacon and some really sweet coffee.

We all sniffled just a little in our own private way.

Then, I heard a car and a horn.

I glanced out the window in the kitchen door to see two 70-somethings moving with purpose and agility.

Two 70-somethings sprinting up the driveway.

It was of course, Grandmother and Big Daddy.

By the time they they flew open the doorway and stepped into the house, M & D and Siblings 1&2 had returned to the kitchen; just in time to hear Big Daddy happily announce, with a twinkle in his damp, blue eyes, “your Grandmother just was not ready to leave."

They stayed another week, and we loved it!