Dear Friends,
Tomorrow you will awake alone in your home for the first time in twenty-four years. And as you prepare for your day you will notice a feeling that is initially unidentifiable. Things will just feel different, you feel different. Instinctively you’ll think of your children, all in their places. Seattle? check. South Bend? check, Home?…scratch that, your baby has just been delivered to Ames..first day of college classes…check? Your natural reflex will be to greet this recalled fact with a reluctance to accept that everything has changed. But has it?
You can't avoid change, and you can't avoid good-byes. Likewise, you can't avoid a bit of reluctance in their eventual coming. Sending a child away to college or to a permanent job and home far away can be devastating if you mistakenly view it with regret. Leaving fond times and places behind for new ones can be bittersweet. This feeling is natural...but should not be consuming. Accept this change for what it is - and for what it is not. Change it is, but it is not the end of anything really. More accurately, it's the beginning.
Remember, you have prepared you children for these lives of theirs. You’ve groomed them for this. Your collective goal has always been to be where you (and they) are today. And today they are well on their way to being the independent, intelligent, thoughtful, loving, respectful adults that you’ve tried so hard to raise. Is there anything for which you would trade this feeling of satisfaction? All of your past desires, for you and for your children, are being fulfilled and yet there is still a natural longing for time gone by...for memories.
Your experiences over these past many years, as a parent to children at home, has fostered a treasure of wonderful and timeless memories that cannot be erased by time or distance or change. These will endure a lifetime. And not just yours, but all of your children’s and their children’s collective lifetimes. You are all forever bound even without being forever together.
You are experiencing a moment of parental triumph. After all, your quiet home is really a reflection of satisfaction…a job well done. And those feelings that you struggle to identify are feelings of happiness. Not perhaps in a literal sense but more of an acceptance…a solace.
My best advice is simply... get used to this feeling of triumph...embrace it. Life is full of the memories of the past, the apprehension of the future and the satisfaction of dealing with it all. And don’t forget that “M&D” has never just been “Mom and Dad”. It began as “Mike & Denise” thirty years ago, before J, M & K and there it has returned…strong as ever and then some.
Remember all of this my friends, and you’ll realize that your “nest” is far from empty.
Love,
-M&D
P.S…Call your parents.
Tomorrow you will awake alone in your home for the first time in twenty-four years. And as you prepare for your day you will notice a feeling that is initially unidentifiable. Things will just feel different, you feel different. Instinctively you’ll think of your children, all in their places. Seattle? check. South Bend? check, Home?…scratch that, your baby has just been delivered to Ames..first day of college classes…check? Your natural reflex will be to greet this recalled fact with a reluctance to accept that everything has changed. But has it?
You can't avoid change, and you can't avoid good-byes. Likewise, you can't avoid a bit of reluctance in their eventual coming. Sending a child away to college or to a permanent job and home far away can be devastating if you mistakenly view it with regret. Leaving fond times and places behind for new ones can be bittersweet. This feeling is natural...but should not be consuming. Accept this change for what it is - and for what it is not. Change it is, but it is not the end of anything really. More accurately, it's the beginning.
Remember, you have prepared you children for these lives of theirs. You’ve groomed them for this. Your collective goal has always been to be where you (and they) are today. And today they are well on their way to being the independent, intelligent, thoughtful, loving, respectful adults that you’ve tried so hard to raise. Is there anything for which you would trade this feeling of satisfaction? All of your past desires, for you and for your children, are being fulfilled and yet there is still a natural longing for time gone by...for memories.
Your experiences over these past many years, as a parent to children at home, has fostered a treasure of wonderful and timeless memories that cannot be erased by time or distance or change. These will endure a lifetime. And not just yours, but all of your children’s and their children’s collective lifetimes. You are all forever bound even without being forever together.
You are experiencing a moment of parental triumph. After all, your quiet home is really a reflection of satisfaction…a job well done. And those feelings that you struggle to identify are feelings of happiness. Not perhaps in a literal sense but more of an acceptance…a solace.
My best advice is simply... get used to this feeling of triumph...embrace it. Life is full of the memories of the past, the apprehension of the future and the satisfaction of dealing with it all. And don’t forget that “M&D” has never just been “Mom and Dad”. It began as “Mike & Denise” thirty years ago, before J, M & K and there it has returned…strong as ever and then some.
Remember all of this my friends, and you’ll realize that your “nest” is far from empty.
Love,
-M&D
P.S…Call your parents.
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