Heartache: Tears of sending a child off to college

SPRINGFIELD, Ma. (The Catholic Observer) - Sweat was pouring down my back as I climbed to the fourth floor for the fifth time. I don't even know what I was carrying. I just know that I had calculated there was only one more trip left till all of the "stuff" from the van was moved into Kerry's dorm room at college.

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Sure there was an elevator. But there also was a huge line for it. So we joined parade of other students and parents who hiked up the stairs. My husband, John, our 18-year-old daughter, Kerry, and I made several trips from our car to her new home at college. Parents gave each other sympathetic nods and smiles as we went up and down. Most of us couldn't talk much as we gasped for air. However, I joked to one woman in the stairwell that I didn't know delivering a child to college would be more difficult than delivering them into the world. She laughed and said she had just old her husband that she was glad she had had her daughter at age 30. "If I waited a few more years I don't know if I could make this climb," she said. There was an instant sense of oneness among the parents that day. We were all in the same boat. We were taking our children to their first year of college. It was scary and exciting. It made me remember my first day of college. Of course, none of us had all of the high tech gear that today's students were bringing. A photo of my first day shows me carrying a large, round white case. "What is that?" said my kids. It was my hair dryer, I told them. It had a huge motor with controls and a hose extending from it to a giant pink bonnet. They laughed and said that a laptop computer was smaller than that monstrosity. I also brought an electric typewriter with me. That was a luxury and a much beloved Christmas gift from my parents. I still don't type very well but at least my fingers don't keep slipping in between the keys as they did when I had to use a manual typewriter. A friend of mine from college looked around at Kerry's dorm and said "we never had this much stuff." Of course a lot of the stuff hadn't been developed or invented, we added with a laugh. Although, moving Kerry into college was rough physically that really was the easy part. The hard part is walking past her room in the morning and wanting to shout "you'd better get up or you'll be late for school" but instead looking at an empty bed. It is hard saying night prayers with the other children and not being able to hold Kerry's hand for that Hail Mary. It is missing her dry wit and interesting thoughts at night as she would tell of her day at school. When we drove away from her college that first time I did not cry. I actually felt good about where she was and the journey she was about to begin. But when we got home that night we found she had left a gift for the family on the pillow on my bed. She had bought the book Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes. It is a children's book by one of our favorite authors - who also wrote Lily and the Plastic Purse. This book describes the worries and fears of a little girl as she heads off to nursery school. Those same fears and worries were not much different than the ones that Kerry and other young people might have as they go off to college. Kerry inscribed the book and then added little notes on each page as they related to parts of our family life. It was a beautiful and thoughtful gift and - of course - I sobbed as I read it. I thanked Kerry, later for that book and she dismissed it casually. She has never been big on compliments. But that book showed me that John and I had done our job. Yes, we had done the job of hauling and moving and lugging Kerry off to college. And, yes, we had helped her to learn to talk, walk, read and write. And we had taught her to say please and thank you. But most importantly, we had gotten her ready to go from us to the world of college. In a sense, we graduated on that hot, steamy day as we went up and down and up and down those stairs. Kerry will come home many times from that day. She may even move back home some day. But I knew that from now on she would be on her own. On this day she had flown from our nest and spread her wings. It was both beautiful and terrifying to watch her soar. The author's daughter, Kerry, has since graduated from college and has a job at Catholic Digest.