We did this last year with our eldest so I am experienced at pushing fledglings out of the family nest. In fact, I felt a bit smug after leaving the first-born a week ago at his student house.  I left dry-eyed, with a cheerful wave and the creeping certainty that the bag of cleaning products I had left him with will still be there, untouched, when he moves out next summer.  But now, just two hours before the next boy in line is due to leave, I’m feeling it all afresh.

Another milestone approaches.  Although son number two is only going to be two hours’ drive away and he’ll probably hop on the train home in a few weeks, it won’t be quite the same.  From now on when he comes back he will be “just visiting.”  The welter of emotions accompanying these thoughts hits me as I step into the shower and I let myself slip over the sentimental cliff edge I’ve been avoiding. 

I think back to the red Thomas the Tank Engine shorts, and the Thomas the Tank t-shirt, and the Thomas pyjamas he liked to wear (it was a lifestyle choice for him), and then of his face smiling up at me saying “peease” and “fank you” and I start blubbing like an idiot as I shampoo my hair.  On a roll, I allow myself to remember even further back to when he was tiny, curled up on my shoulder like a little monkey, his breath against my neck.  I think about his warmth, his milky smell, his sweaty head, and I let myself sob quietly, shoulders shaking and tears washing down the drain. 

Eventually I stop crying because I’m not sad, not really.  How could I be?  I’m grateful and happy for the person he is and because he is here.  I know it is part of a process.  Life moves on and that’s how it has to be.

We load up the car and deliver him and his stuff to his dorm and watch him sign in, pick up keys, and do what he’s supposed to do.  It is his responsibility now.  Other parents pass us back and forth, laden with suitcases, pillows and desk lamps, their faces fixed in controlled expressions which I imagine mirror my own.  We’re all a little shell-shocked.  Perhaps it is the anticipated loss of impending good-byes but maybe it is more than that. 

Maybe we’re all beginning to realize that the opportunities from here on are not just for our children.  I feel a sense of uncertainty but also excitement about what the future holds for us as parents whose offspring are leaving home.  We might not be responsibility-free, knocking back beers in the student union but we too have come to a milestone in life.  We too can choose a new direction.  Watch this space.      

I managed not to cry until we got back to the car.