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LOVE IT WHEN THEY COME,
LOVE IT WHEN THEY GO |
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The Christmas
holidays are over, and the children have flown south to return to school
and jobs, leaving my wife and I all alone in our empty house.
Hallelujah!!
It’s not
that I don’t like my children. They’re very nice kids, and I always
look forward to seeing them. And I honestly hope they do come back and
visit again and again.
But after
spending almost 30 years raising the little munchkins, I found it
surprisingly easy to recover from the "empty nest syndrome" that
afflicts so many parents. In fact, I estimate it took me about an hour and
a half after the last child left home before I felt really comfortable.
I quickly realized
they don’t leave for long, anyway. My daughters visit often, and my 21
and 22 year old sons are only an hour’s flight away, so they’re home
for holidays, most of the summer, and any weekend when one of their
hometown friends decides it’s time for a reunion.
And when
they return, our quiet little empty nest suddenly turns into a frat house.
Kids coming in and out at all hours, TV’s blaring, junk food and empty
beer bottles in rooms that have been untouched for months---it’s chaos.
One morning
last week kind of summed it up. I heard the front door open and close a
few times around 3 a.m., and I hoped it was someone I knew. The boys had
gone out in San Francisco, 30 minutes away, and I tried not to worry about
whether they would make it home. But someone had made it back, and I
wanted to assume it was them.
The next morning I
confidently went downstairs and saw my 19 year old nephew, who was
visiting us from Canada, sleeping on the couch. I woke him up and he
groggily informed me that the 21 year old ended up in Orinda and the 22
year old was still in San Francisco, exact whereabouts unknown.
I noticed the door
was closed to the boy’s bedroom. "Who’s in there?" I asked,
cringing.
My nephew had
trouble concentrating. Apparently, he had thrown up quite a few times
while having his designated driver take him back to our house. But he
managed to stimulate his brain just enough to answer. "I think it’s
Jonah."
Jonah was a friend
of my 22 year old son and a fellow engineering student. His family is from
Nigeria, so he was spending the holidays with us. He’s a behemoth of a
young man, 6’-7" and 250 pounds.
I opened the door
and, sure enough, he was sleeping in my son’s bed. He heard the door
open and sheepishly said good morning. I didn’t understand why he looked
so sheepish until I saw the other head pop up from under the covers.
"Hi, I’m
Tiffany," she chirped.
That’s when I
hit the wall. My two sons were nowhere to be found, my nephew was so
hungover he could barely talk, and there was a rather unusual couple
sleeping in my son’s bed.
It was the
movie,"Hangover, Part Three." I half-expected to find a
rhinoceros in one of the other rooms.
There were other
incidents, but that was my favorite. So when they flew south early this
week, I had mixed emotions. I’m always sorry to see them go, but the
quiet house helped ease the pain.
And as always, I
remembered one of my father’s favorite sayings. When my sisters and I
had young families, we would visit him at his idyllic cabin retreat up in
the mountains. After a weekend of little grandchildren screaming and
yelling and tugging at his sleeve, all of whom he loved dearly, he would
repeat his mantra.
"I have seen
the sunrise at the Taj Mahal," he would begin. "I have seen the
sunsets at the Great Pyramids. I have seen the moon glisten off the waters
of the South Pacific……But the most beautiful sight I have ever seen is
the sight of my children’s taillights as their car disappears over the
hill."
I’m not positive, but
I think he was exaggerating. |
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