A Mother Bereft

Our daughter Madeleine just returned to college, and on the way home from the airport I felt completely bereft. When she goes away, I feel as though my world contracts, and I lose a huge part of my life. There is a part of my brain that is always spinning with thoughts of her, where she is, what class she has or perhaps she's studying, what she's doing on Friday night, etc. When she is here my world expands to include her activities and our time with her, and when she leaves, so much seems gone. I wonder if that is what it's like when your children grow up and move away and your friends and family start to die and your world really does get smaller and smaller.

This was the first time she's been home from college where we just got to hang out together - no holidays, no whirling social life - and it was so wonderful. Waking her up in the morning, hugging her good night, setting a place for her at the table - all created the illusion that she was back home again, though in reality only for a while. While Barney and I worked and had and meetings, she saw her friends who were home from college as well. We managed to spend a lot of time together, talking and laughing, cooking together, watching a movie. On her last night home we made a wonderful dinner and played a favorite family board game, Mille Borne, to much hilarity and punctuated by Barney's puns. I felt honored that she chose to spend time with us instead of going out with her friends. On Sunday it was so beautiful, and we thought about a hike, but somehow all felt a bit too lazy for that. She packed, and then said how nice it would be to sit outside in the sun and read. So she helped us clean off the back porch and set up our picnic table on our newly-built driveway/patio. After that effort, we had some lovely cheese and bread and wine and just sat and talked. It was heaven. We are so lucky. She will be home in two months, and interviewed and now has a summer job here, so I hope it will be a good summer together.