Several years ago, my oldest daughter gave me a magnet that says, “Home is where your mom is.”
We have an especially close relationship, due in large part to some earlier life struggles that are a story for another time. But I will easily admit that the day we dropped her off at college was one of the most difficult days of my life emotionally.
That day we dropped her off, I had intense feelings of pride, joy, and excitement that were being trampled on by equally intense feelings of loss and sadness.
I knew that I had to keep the tears contained as we walked her to an orientation event and had to say our final goodbye. My daughter had already warned me that if I couldn’t keep it together, she would lose it too. I managed to make it back to the campus commons area just in time to quickly duck into a bathroom to burst into tears, not wanting my younger children to see me falling apart.
But I also know parents who did not feel so devastated during this process of letting go. As teenagers go through the natural process of separation and differentiation to become independent young people, there can often be significant conflict and tension in parent-child relationships.
Sometimes, a child leaving home for college or work can come at a time when it is a beneficial move in order to preserve a positive and healthy relationship.
However, my husband and I were neither happy nor relieved when any of our three older children left home. Of course we understood that this was the natural order of things and a necessary part of growing up. We were immensely proud and excited for them to launch and start pursuing their dreams, but ouch, it sure did hurt.
A few weeks before our oldest daughter was leaving, I heard the Simon and Garfunkel song “Bridge over Troubled Water” and it took on a new and powerful meaning to me.
As I listened and sang along to the lyrics of what is already a very emotional and beautiful song, I felt like it was ME singing this to my daughter. One stage of her life, OUR life was ending and another beginning, but I wasn’t going to be there any more in quite the same way.
“Sail on, silver girl
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
Oh, if you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind”
Luckily, when I heard the song I was in the car by myself because I started to ugly cry. My daughter still has the envelope of a card I gave her the day we dropped her off, with those song lyrics written down.
To this day, over five years later, I cannot listen to that song without crying (and I have tested this a couple of times)! And I don’t just mean tearing up, it's the kind of welling up inside of you that you cannot control.
As a parent, I think you do get more accustomed to saying goodbye to your children as they grow up and move on, but it’s never easy. For the past 18 months after graduating from college, our oldest daughter has alternately worked and traveled, funding her own trips through Europe, Vietnam, and Australia.
She chose to live and work here in Cleveland while she was in between adventures—what a gift. And Home is where she has been for the past eight months, working until her next move: graduate school.
Additionally, our oldest son and his fiancé moved back to Cleveland about seven months ago.
Four out of our five children were living in our hometown for the first time in six years! The time has flown by quicker than any of us here at home would have liked. For our 15-year-old and 10-year-old to have one of their young adult siblings living at home and another sibling just 10 minutes away has been a special, unique, and incredibly supportive experience.
While we are thrilled to have our oldest son settling down in Cleveland, the clock has been ticking and winding down until our daughter moves on once again.
So, how am I feeling now that she is leaving at the end of the month to move to attend graduate school…in Sydney, Australia?
Well, obviously I need to take her there to help get her settled in, so that’s a super exciting bonus. But as far as the long plane ride back and returning to a home without her, I will definitely have to take Simon and Garfunkel off of my playlist.
When friends talk about future plans and where they might like to retire, my answer is always the same: I will wait and see where my children end up. I predict that the future will include a lot of traveling to keep up with them all, because for me, home is where my kids are.