Reflections: Arriving at the "All At Once"
Of graduations, growth, and goodbyes
In the May 2003 edition of Country Roads I started this “Reflections” column by acknowledging that I was about to break my cardinal rule of editorial column-writing, which hitherto had been to keep things light, not attempt to solve the world’s problems; and most of all, never to write sentimental drivel about babies. The reason for my break with tradition in that edition was that my wife and I had just welcomed our first child, and at the moment that she grasped my two pinkies in her tiny, tiny fists, it became abundantly clear to me that life was never going to be the same again. Now, eighteen years later almost to the day, my wife and I have just watched that same child graduate from high school, and I think I might be just about to break my cardinal rule again.
Better writers than I have set out to capture the clamor of emotions that accompanies the process of letting go of your child’s hand as she takes her first steps into adulthood. I wonder whether any of them has ever gotten it completely. It’s as if all the moments of joy, fear, hope, frustration, heart-bursting pride, hand-wringing worry, rage, panic, mystification, and sheer wonder that have been competing for attention in your head since a nurse first placed this warm, damp creature into your arms, all come rushing back to take a victory lap at once. By any measure our daughter has lived a full, accomplished, and fortunate eighteen years thus far. She has worked hard, tried difficult things, leapt at opportunities, made a lot out of a little, been knocked down and gotten back up; and remained affectionate, kind, and funny while generally succeeding beyond her parents’ wildest imaginings. She has certainly shown herself to be smarter and more accomplished than said parents—qualities that have not escaped the notice of the admissions people at Harvard University (there, I said it). So, it is to Cambridge, Massachusetts, that our daughter is headed this fall—several worlds away from the rural upbringing, excellent public school education, and caring, tight-knit community, that prepared her for this dance.
A common truism that new parents often hear from more seasoned ones is that the whole journey will be over in a second—that one day you’ll blink and they’ll be gone. I suppose that nothing generates truisms like a widely shared experience, since the more people who share an experience, the more likely it would seem they will agree on ways to describe it. Anyway, seeing the little creature we’ve so long nurtured, comforted, read to, laughed with, coached, scolded, applauded, fretted over, picked up, dropped off, snapped at, apologized to, and been astonished by, finally about to pack up all that we’ve poured into her, and start figuring out how to apply it out in the big wide world: this is the experience every parent of a departing child arrives at eventually. I guess we’ve reached the ‘blinking’ part.
Or maybe it’s more like Ernest Hemingway’s famous answer when asked how he’d gone bankrupt. “Two ways:” he reportedly said, “gradually, then all at once.” If so, then the question I have for the more seasoned parents is: are we still in the ‘gradual’ bit? Or is this the ‘all-at-once?’ If it’s the former, then I’m glad to know we still have a few more years to savor this parenting thing. But if it’s the latter, maybe don’t say anything at all.
James Fox-Smith, publisher