The big goodbye and journeys ahead

Melissa Dribben

is an Inquirer staff writer

I made French toast for one this morning. Cut off the crusts and fed them to my grateful, slobbery dogs. I brewed a single cup of coffee and tried to put my sorrow in perspective by reading the news.

In Kentucky, global warming has corn popping on the stalks. In Florida, an evangelist minister planning to burn the Quran is fanning the fires of religious hatred. And around here, there are boyfriend stabbings, wife stranglings, brother shootings, and petty graft with DRPA employees traveling toll roads for free.

As comforting as it may be to know there's a world of greater pain out there, I didn't get much past the headlines before bailing and turning to the J. Crew catalog to marvel at the $650 sequined harem pants. Who would ever wear them? Who would ever pay that?

Who cares?

Not me. But harem pants are giving me a few seconds' reprieve from the image of my daughter's back, 18 hours ago, as I stood outside a college gym and watched her, the last of my children, walk away.

It's quiet in my kitchen now. A hollow, disquieting quiet.

I can hear the refrigerator whir and cars whiz by the house and the whisper of my own breath. This is the kind of peaceful morning I have coveted for the last 26 years when, if I wanted any time alone, I had to steal it.

Today the solitude feels like a shroud.

I'm not asking for sympathy. Trust me, I know how to forbear under duress. I've raised three kids. I'm used to disdain and cruel indifference.

And yes, on the scale of tragedies, sending your youngest off to college is nothing compared with death by stoning, North Korean prison, or receiving the affections of Carl "Hands-on" Greene.

My current suffering is not as painful as pacing the apartment at 3 a.m. with an inconsolable infant or prying your terrified 6-year-old's fingers from your hand as she's wheeled into the operating room, or explaining to your eighth grader why her best friends have now formed a we-hate-you club.

It's not as alienating as listening to two teenagers laughing uproariously over a conspiratorial conversation in "gibberish," a language any idiot but an adult could decode, or inviting your morose 17-year-old to go see a movie and have her shoot you this horrified look as if she'd risk being seen in your company in public.

I'm tempted to say I'd trade my current emptiness for all of that gone-by misery. But the truth is, I wouldn't.

Passing women pushing strollers these days, I silently wish them good luck. The road from there to here is achingly sweet, but so long and treacherous. I wouldn't have the stamina - or courage - to retrace those steps.

Over the last few months in my daughter's eyes I have morphed from slavish golden retriever to repulsive cockroach to the hen who's laid her egg and needs to cluck off back to her rooster.

My friends ask, "How are you handling the empty nest?" I appreciate their concern but loathe the phrase, implying as it does that these feelings are neatly packaged.

So no comparisons, please, to ornithological anything. Crow's-feet are bad enough. And besides, my fledglings haven't flown, they all drive stick.

The night before the big goodbye, we stayed at a friend's house within walking distance of the college. A few blocks from the meeting point, she stopped and said: "This is close enough. You can leave now." I had held it together all morning and still felt fine, almost cheerful, coaching myself about how great this was going to be for her. How exciting. She was going to be so happy.

"As of now," she said, "I no longer know you." For a second, I thought, Wow, I'm going to get through this, but when I tried to hug her, tears burned my eyes, the words snagged in my throat, and all I could do was stand there, dumb and soggy.

"Stop," she groaned. "Have a good flight," then leaned in to give me what nearly qualified as a kiss, turned and trundled off.

I saw her back, much smaller, disappear into the van that took her to nursery school. Heard her little-girl voice, mimicking a dead-on English accent, sing the entire score from Les Miserables. Saw a thousand vivid scenes of her in the bathtub overflowing with bubbles, practicing backflips in the gym, dredged in flour and chocolate after baking one of her infamous bread puddings, swinging at birthday piñatas, softballs, and the punching bag she used in high school to vent her frustrations.

Her friends signed a poster she will put up in her dorm. My husband wrote "stay away!!" in the middle. He is as bereft as I am, but can summon a better sense of humor.

Her last morning at home, she made me blintzes from scratch. During the trip up to the school, we did crossword puzzles and she fell asleep with her feet on my lap. There's no going back. If we could, it would be at the price of the future. And who on earth would want to miss that?

On the way home, our older daughter called to make sure I was all right. Eight years ago, the night after I dropped her off at college, I woke up in a panic, unable to breathe. When my son left a few years later, I was so distraught, I got a ticket for speeding as we pulled onto the highway. I hate this letting go, though holding on is selfish. Eventually, I tell myself, we all find our way back to one another.

Now it's time to find my way back to my husband. To myself. And the exquisite distraction of those sequined harem pants.