There are times when I am positive my parents are watching me from heaven just laughing away, now especially. My oldest is out of the house on his own, my middle son is beginning a career in the hospitality industry and my youngest is in high school.
My parents have been gone for a while now. Mom died when I was pregnant with my oldest so she never had the chance to hold my children and see them grow. Dad died five years later after a battle with Alzheimer’s and cancer. He met the oldest two, but didn’t really know who they were.
I’m at that interesting time in life when we aren’t quite empty nesters, but I can see it on the horizon. When my oldest left to study at The Citadel I knew he was where he wanted to be. It was the best experience for him. As he spread his wings and began to spend less and less time at home I began channelling my mother.
“We’d love to see you.” “Are you sure you can’t make it home over spring break?” “Oh, you won’t be home for the holidays?”
You see, when I was in college I worked in the athletic department at the University of Richmond. First I was a manager of the men’s basketball team. We had abbreviated Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. In the summers I worked in the sports information office and with the marketing office. I made it home for short little vacations here and there. When I left home in New Jersey for college at 17, I never returned to live there again.
When I find myself lamenting at the lack of time with my oldest son, I look back remember how I felt as a young adult. I loved my parents, but I was making my way in the world as an adult. I did call pretty often and wrote once in a while, but we really didn’t have time together. To me I was doing what they raised me to do, be on my own.
So today, as I find myself wondering where the time has gone and how much I miss talking with my oldest, I know my parents are smiling and saying to me, “See? Now you know how it feels!”
