We prepare our children to go off to school, and then they have the nerve to actually leave. They come home for a couple of days, get their laundry done, and spend more time with their friends from high school than they do with us. It’s torture, really. We’re proud, we’re worried, concerned that they won’t be able to get along without us—and then we’re shattered when they do. We’re left realizing that, as they begin to create their own future, we begin to face our own mortality.
