The rearview mirror

by

Patti Dickinson

Last Thursday, we took Andrew to college. Kid #6. He is a freshman at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He is our first kid to go to college with a car. The emotional climate was a mixed bag. Wood was all about the statistics and minutia, how many miles, putting the address in the GPS, checking the gas tank, the mileage, the ETA. I was all about figuring out how to breathe with a lump in my throat the size of a softball and Andrew was steeling himself for being plunked from an environment where he was comfortable, into a new environment that is 202 miles away, and 18,000 kids strong. Wood and I drove in my car with Andrew's stuff, and he followed behind in his car, also loaded with everything that will recreate home 3 hours and 40 minutes away.

So I drove, Wood navigated. (I drive a lot, because I have a hard time sitting still in the passenger seat and if I am doing something, I don't need to stop for snacks or something to drink every 45 minutes.)

I kept checking the rearview mirror to make sure Andrew was keeping pace (that's another whole story, let's just leave it that sometimes my pace is a little fast, and I certainly don't want to leave this already-a-wreck of a kid in the dust on some highway four states from home). Yes, I was looking back, both literally and figuratively.

And I did a lot of that that day. I reminisced. I cried. A lot. Eighteen years, over in a flash. Eighteen years of learning to ride his bike, scoring that first soccer goal with his quick glance to the sidelines knowing that we were there. Wood and I screaming shamelessly. The first day of school. Walking into his Kindergarten classroom with his madras shorts, his buttoned-up-to-the-neck polo shirt, brand spanking new tennis shoes and backpack. And the hundreds of papers, spelling tests, book reports and art projects that came through our back door at the end of the elementary days. The friendships, the rivalries. The ups and the downs. The backs and the forths. The weeks, months, years. Andrew will now be waking up somewhere else in the morning. He will be finding his own way. He will be making most of his decisions independently.

Move-in went smoothly. Boxes hauled up four flights of stairs. His roommate got there, and we shared a few laughs over this kid's Pepsi addiction when he wasn't in the room. He brought 8 12-packs of Pepsi. I guess that kid runs on caffeine.

After the move-in, we took Andrew to lunch at Olive Garden. I looked up once and caught his eye. I teared up....knowing that we were counting down to the inevitable goodbye. He mouthed "Not yet, mom." He wasn't ready for my tears. Must be hard being a kid, watching your mom cry.

So we dropped him off at his car, so that he could go from there and find the building to pick up his parking sticker. He hugged me hard. I hugged him back. Hard. And we left. Drove off, with me wiping tears, sobbing. Not over. But --- kind of over.

I miss him....the funny stuff he does with Meghan at dinner....she calls him "Andy" ( a nickname that never stuck) and he looks at her, with a whimsical smile and a slight shake of his head. I miss the political talk at the table, the banter back and forth about what's going on on Capitol Hill. The background noise of Bill O'Reilly. I haven't made salsa in a week. No one else in the family calls it a food group. No more pitchers of red Crystal Light in the refrig. No more mountains of clothes, backed up in the laundry room. There is a small pile of his clothes, what he wore the day before he left, and strangely, after all the complaining about clothes never getting put away that I have done, I am comforted with that small pile of his clean clothes. Now Meghan will have to be trained to take over the mowing job, and hauling the trash cans to the end of the driveway on Sunday nights.

So --- as all the grandmas used to say to me, as I stood in the grocery store with five kids, at least one of which was having a meltdown because I wouldn't let him/her have m & m's at 9:00 in the morning, "Cherish this time...all too soon they will be grown...." And I used to think, as I hauled the kid off the floor to a standing position, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????"

They were right.