Off to college

My current column for the Catholic Herald:

What's so good about goodbye?






By Barbara Curtis
9/7/11

How did it get so late so soon?

It's night before it's afternoon.

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December is here before it's June.

My goodness how the time has flewn.

How did it get so late so soon?

-- Dr. Seuss

What they never told me in my "Megamommy Guide" was that on the other
side of diapers and finger paints and peanut butter and jelly was an
endless season of goodbyes.

OK, I'm talking to you older parents here -- parents who've married
off kids or sent them to college or boot camp. And I'm wondering if it
ever gets any better. I mean, there's the first good-bye and then there
are all the ones that come after. There's dropping your daughter off at
college freshman year, but there's saying goodbye again after her third
summer at home. Is one any easier than the other?

And I'm talking to you parents of many kids -- now grown-ups or almost
grown-ups spinning off in all different directions. Home for vacation
or visits and then off to their own real world again -- the entrance that
once was the dividing line between family and the outside world now a
revolving door. Do you ever feel like Dorothy in the Land of Oz? "My,
people come and go so quickly here."

You'd think it would come easier after all these years of 12 kids
coming and going, but it doesn't. Last year, when Sophia went back to
college, I was wondering aloud why life seems so full of hellos and
goodbyes. Maddy sagely reminded me of that great spiritual classic Go,
Dog, Go! -- you know, the one with the guy dog who keeps running into the
fancy poodle:

"Hello."

"Hello again."

"Do you like my hat?"

"No, I do not like that hat."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye again."

I found that comforting in a strangely metaphysical way. But maybe
it's because I've spent way too many years reading books to kids.

On the other hand, there's The Runaway Bunny, where the baby bunny
tells his mommy of his plans to hide as a fish in a stream, a crocus in a
garden or a rock on a mountain. His mother assures him that if that
happens, she will become a fisherman, a gardener, or a rock climber to
find him.

My take on the runaway bunny? That it would give the child a sense of
safety and security that mother loves her little bunny enough to follow
him anywhere. But as one of my kids explained to me later, there's a
more creepy side to the tale: that the mother will not let go.

Yet another aspect of the juggling act known as motherhood: loving completely, but letting go.

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