A Few Feathers, Some Broken Eggshells

Well, it's official - my nest is empty.

My youngest son has moved into an apartment with three of his friends, and the house already seems so... well, empty.

I went into his room yesterday after he left and sat on the bed. Much of his stuff is still there, of course - the posters are still on the wall, the sports trophies are still on the shelf, the prized collection of glass animals that he's been gathering since he was a little boy (he's an animal lover and a Biology major) are in their case. I think those made me the saddest of all; young men don't play with little glass animal figurines, now do they? His priorities have shifted to bigger things (as well they should), like his friends and his grades and his social life and his future.

I helped him load a few boxes into his car yesterday, washed and folded his new sheets, bought him new pillows and a lamp, and generally kept a cheerful, upbeat attitude about the whole thing. But the whole time I was thinking, "It's the end of his childhood. I'll go to bed at night without knowing he's safe in his room, and when I wake up in the morning he won't be there. He won't be there ever again, not in the way it was before." And so, yes, I shed a few tears, alone there in his room, and I'll probably shed a few more.

I know it'll be okay. I know it's part of the pattern of life: we give birth to our children, but we don't own them. We spend the next eighteen years or so trying to give them wings to fly, but oh, how it hurts when the winds of change start blowing. Despite my feelings of sadness, I hope an updraft catches him and bears him aloft to where he can see the world laid out before him like a treasure trove. And I hope he chooses his treasures wisely, and handles them with care, just like he did those little glass animals.

They, along with his father and I, will still be here whenever he wants to visit.