It could have been compared to the awkward silence after a first date.
My wife and I were standing at the doorway of our daughter’s apartment seeking any excuse to stay, while “our date”, our oldest daughter, was trying to hide her frustration and politely shue us out the door as quickly as possible.
Last weekend my wife and I moved our daughter to residence at university and we did everything humanly possible to prolong the project.
“What? You don’t have hand towels? We better run to Wal-Mart and get some.”
“Oh my goodness, you don’t have any fruit. Let’s just zip over to Sobeys and get some groceries to help you get started.”
When we were not island hopping from store-to-store ensuring our daughter had everything she needed, we were in her surprisingly spacious room reorganizing drawers for the fifth time, tacking notices and school calendars on her bulletin board or unloading dishes in the kitchen.
It was perfectly clear we were doing everything we possibly could to delay the inevitable.
We would have to leave our daughter and go home.
It was also perfectly clear our daughter was at her wits end as her company did not seem in any rush to leave.
I can sympathize with her. This was her first experience away from home and she was having a tough time experiencing anything with her mom and dad hanging around.
How does one get to know your roommates with mom organizing your underwear drawer and dad trying to optimize shelf space in the kitchen?
I hope she can also sympathize with our predicament.
This was the first time one of our children would be moving so far from home.
I don’t think we even realized what we were doing, but we were having a difficult time letting go.
Although my wife and I had been preparing for this moment for months, you do not realize how hard it is going to be to leave your child in an apartment eight hours away until the time comes.
There are so many things going through your mind. Will she be safe? Will she get along with her roommates and are they good people? Will she eat? Will she take care of herself? Will she know how to pay her bills?
All this is on top of the fact she is going to university for the first time and you are anxious about how she will handle all of these stressors in an effort to succeed at school.
All you can do is hope you raised her well and the lessons she has learned will provide the guidance she needs to not only survive, but thrive in her new environment.
Finally on Monday my wife and I headed west for the long drive home. As we pulled onto the highway my wife received a text — “I miss you.”
We both looked at each other and smiled. She is going to be great.
Now we can focus on the next problem, how are we going to pay for all of this?
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