The Empty Nest

In a few weeks my youngest son moves into a dorm at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, which is two minutes away from our house. The way I’ve been carrying on you’d think he was headed for a college campus thousands of miles away.

I’ve spent a lot of time this summer pondering why I could have been so stoic when my older son left home at 16 to be a foreign exchange student in Germany – and never looked back. He now resides in Seoul, South Korea.

Thanks to my mom, some good friends (thank you Susan and Karin) and years of lecturing parents of incoming freshmen on ‘holding on and letting go’ in a previous life as a college adviser at a big university back east, I know the answer: It’s the end of an era.

The empty nest is truly upon me. No turning back  to the days of field trips to the pumpkin patch and parent-teacher conferences.

As I was writing the above several days ago, my husband passed on e-mail about the move-in schedule for my son’s newly refurbished dormitory.  With each stroke of the keyboard, I was wracked with guilt for feeling sad when other parents have to let go in much more permanent ways.

Last week a 12-year-old boy from this closely knit community died in an accident a few towns away while visiting relatives. He and his parents attended/attend the same large church my family does, and his older brother was in my cohort of confirmation kids, although not in my small group.

The morning of his funeral, despite the good advice of my mom and my wonderful friend Karin, I went to the standing-room only service. I sought Karin’s advice because this  extraordinary mom of a teenage daughter eloquently and tenderly chronicled in her newspaper column the death of her other daughter several years ago--as a baby to a rare disease.

Through the plate glass windows behind where I sat, in the overflow seating in the narthex, I watched the sky cloud over and raindrops spatter the glass. I listened intently as our insightful minister told those assembled that “twelve-year-olds are not supposed to die” and exhorted the congregation to celebrate the deceased boy’s life. Pastor Gary read letters from the late boy’s teachers extolling his heart and kindness. He said not to seek answers where none are available, instead to celebrate this boy’s life – a kid who chose to be an organ donor in his young years.

In the overflow section, I sat by a display board extolling the boy’s elementary and middle school accomplishments. I couldn’t stop looking at the smiling pictures and the certificates honoring his exemplary achievements. Just a couple months ago, my own graduating high schooler and his friends had similar boards on display at their graduation parties. I likened the round of celebrations to cotillion season in the long-ago south. It was such a joyous time.

That rainy morning was saturated with sadness.

As the video montage of pictures of the deceased boy and his family played, I wept as did everyone else. Again, recently I’d sat in that same church with my youngest son and husband and other families at a luncheon honoring high school seniors.

I had trouble sleeping the rest of the week.

This weekend at Sunday brunch conversation at our house turned to college move-in day and activities for incoming freshmen, as well as packing and shopping. My youngest son’s enthusiasm was contagious.

I’m done mourning the end of one era and am ready to embrace the knowledge my youngest child is moving on to a new phase of his life.

Because somewhere another mother’s child is not.

I have to let go--but in a way that makes me want to fall on my knees and be grateful for the opportunity.

4th of July

It was five years ago tomorrow my husband and I walked through our new neighborhood here on the ‘prairie,’ incredulous at the firecracker carnage littering the streets. Equally amazing, by the following day the streets were pristine.

So goes life in Nebraska.

Sitting now on the deck, that same husband and I with matching laptops, I’m listening to the crackly sounds of fireworks – actually eager for darkness when we’ll quietly shoot off a few before retiring.

Previous years we’ve blown things up with friends. Tonight with a jetlagged husband recently returned from a trip to China, we’re just hanging out. I’m hopeful he’ll be alert enough to join friends and me at a showing of Jaws at the vintage theater downtown tomorrow night.

In the summer of 1975, I saw Jaws in a theater in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan on my first-ever movie date. An old dear high school friend asked me recently on Facebook how I can remember that. 

Honestly, I can’t remember anymore what day of the week it is. Chances are, though, if you ask me where I was a month ago or 40 years ago – I can tell you.

Keenly interwoven in the memories that unreel in my mind like home movies is a sense of place.

This morning while Skyping with our older son – employed in his ‘first ‘big boy’ job in Seoul, Korea, said son mentioned wanting to climb mountains there before moving on to his next adventure. Already I can’t remember the exact reference but he mentioned something about being a child of Arizona. He was born in Flagstaff, which rises 6900 feet above sea level. We moved to West Virgina when he was only two-and-a-half, but before leaving the southwest we went on one memorable hike where he climbed up and down nearly 200 steps at a national monument minutes from our home.

I was born in Michigan and lived there 20 years, spent eight-and-a-half years in Iowa, five-and-a-half in Arizona, 15 in West Virginia (where our second son was born), and now tomorrow marks five years smack dab in the middle of the country – Nebraska. The math adds up I think.

Missing every place I’ve been and embracing every place I am is what I do.

In addition to remembering – always remembering.

Mom Math

For a girl who couldn’t pass basic math modules in college, I excel at stats, memorable and minutiae-ish:

• Birth weight of first son:  6 lbs.
• My weight at first doctor’s apt for first pregnancy: 165 lbs.
• Exact weight of aforementioned son’s “George Bailey” suitcase on the scale at Omaha’s Eppley Airport in the wee hours of the morning on first leg of his trip back to Seoul, South Korea to take a one-year job at the university he attended on a study abroad program: 49.5 lbs. (Over 50 lbs. $100 charge)
• Weight of the world on my shoulders: Pressing but lightening.

Wow.

I hate numbers but yet seem to excel at keeping important stats close to my heart.
 
I wrote the above the day eldest Erik left for Seoul. And then couldn’t think of what else to say. Those who know me well will be guffawing in their seats, unable to imagine me at a loss for words.
 
Lots of ‘em.
 
Eloquent articulation eluded me, however. Especially the eloquent part. And I’m dealing with story problems galore, never my strong suit.
 
“If son A is a gazillion miles away on another continent in many other time zones, and son B is in this time zone and graduates from high school in approximately nine weeks, do we serve a nacho bar or pulled pork and turkey sliders for the graduation party?”
 
See what I mean?
 
What’s going through my mom head – and heart – makes as much sense as those old word problems “If one train is traveling west at 100 MPH from Boston, and another train is traveling 150 MPH east from Chicago, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”
 
Yep, you do see what I mean.
 
Five years ago this month, my husband, younger son (Andrew, he of the upcoming high school graduation), and I traveled to Germany on spring break to visit Erik. He was spending his junior year of high school as a foreign exchange student. It was the ultimate ‘holding on and letting go’ experience for me as a parent. Others followed.
 
Next fall, fall his younger brother heads to college and dorm life five minutes away but it’s not the miles but the milestones that are meaningful (although the miles are a BIG deal too).
 
In another lifetime, I used to spin my spiel about ‘holding on and letting go’ to parents of incoming freshman at a large university back east during incoming student orientations.
 
I still firmly stand by my resolute belief if we do our job right as parents, our children are successfully launched into the world – able to make their own decisions (right and wrong) and deal with the successes and consequences.
 
But I still don’t know if nachos or pulled pork sliders are the answer to my story problem.
 
And I’m excited and nervous to see what the next chapter is.

End of an Era

-->

Part One: Party Planning

I flip the kitchen cow calendar to February – gracing and grazing my walls since 2002 – and interrupt my mother/writing partner at work.

“Andrew’s graduation party is three months from tomorrow!’ I say.

She looks up.

“Do you want to start baking cookies today?” she asks. And goes back to typing.

Sigh.

        

Part Two: End of an Era

For years I taught college students and directed freshmen orientation programs for a school of journalism at a university back east. Every June I’d gaze at those parents sitting with their son or daughter  and launch into a ‘holding on and letting go” spiel.

I was particularly zealous the year my older son, now 22,  was a foreign exchange student overseas his junior year of high school. As gently as possible I explained to the hover parents who were freaking out about said son or daughter leaving home, that I understood. 

Empathy fairly oozed out of my pores – along with bewilderment. How could these mothers and fathers not understand if we do our job as parents right, our children leave us. That’s the whole goal of parenthood – to launch sons and daughters into adulthood. I had it all figured out, or so I thought at the time.

Until turning into a hover mother myself lately.

My youngest graduates from high school in just a few months. It truly seems like only yesterday (but it was five years ago this month) my husband and I were flying out to this small city on the prairie for his job interview at a smaller university. I went along mostly because I needed to get on a plane again after many years flight-free, thanks to my forties inflicting claustrophobia on me.

I needed to get on a plane because we were going to fly to Germany the following month for a spring break trip to see aforementioned eldest.  Freaking out about flying was not an option. And whereas my husband spent a year living and traveling in Europe as a child when his dad was on sabbatical (and my parents and in-laws had traveled extensively) I’d never been overseas.

And how could I let a phobia prevent me from seeing my older son?

So spouse and I flew to Nebraska in February, then to Germany with our younger son.  And later moved that little 8^th grader to the prairie.

Time flies too, without any pharmaceutical assistance.

And the closer it gets to younger son’s leaving home – he’s going to attend the university his dad teaches at and live in the dorms five minutes away – the more I realize this holding on and letting go thing is a lot more complicated than I thought.

I’m still an ardent proponent of the ‘letting go’ part, but I’m struck by how much I’m going to miss having any children – young adults – in the house.

It’s not about them, it’s about me.

It doesn’t matter if they go one mile or a million geographically, it’s the distance we measure in our hearts that matters.

Graduation Day

Being a mother of a certain age, some days I  can’t remember to put the lid down on the washing machine or whether I put milk on the grocery list –or where said list is.

However, I can remember with crystal clarity where I was 22 years ago today: giving birth to my first son, Erik. He was born at 5:54 p.m. on a Friday in Flagstaff , Arizona during one of the coldest winters on record.  Snow even blanketed the cacti outside of Phoenix.

Last Friday Erik graduated from college. I sat with my mom waiting for the ceremony to begin while my professor husband was down on the venue floor as part of the processional. To strains of ‘Pomp and Circumstance’  I imagined the words of the host of the reality show  Amazing Race as the winners cross the finish line: “Three continents….”

During his academic career, Erik studied abroad in Europe and Asia. With snowstorm  Draco hitting the prairie earlier this week,  my mom and I were reminiscing yesterday about Storm Daisy that hit Denmark a few years ago – stranding Erik and a friend in his father’s ancestral homeland.

Being a parent is an adventure. Being the parent of an adventurer adds a whole new dimension of worry  and yes, pride.

And don’t forget worry.

My Grandma Rock always poked her head in the car window as we (my mom, my late father and my younger sister and brothers) prepared to leave her house after visiting. “Be careful” she’d say and add “Don’t forget to call when you get there.”

For the most part those half hour trips home were uneventful except for the time a deer ran in front of the car, the animal flipping up over onto the hood, sending glass shattering into the car and a hoof grazing my mother’s cheek  - below her eye.

My brother Steve, sitting in the front seat between my parents (this was the old days), was wearing a little sailor hat with the brim turned down. All weekend my grandmother had advised him to turn the brim up the way the hat was supposed to be worn.

The downward turned brim kept the glass out of his eyes.

We’d been on this trip to Kalamazoo, Michigan to buy a bunk bed for my sister and me. Joan and I must have been maybe in second and third grade. I don’t remember.

I do remember once the bunk bed was assembled,  I rolled over the first night (I wanted to sleep without the safety bar) and landed on the floor. Unhurt. But I did want the protective railing after that.

With one child ‘launched’ and another due to graduate from high school in May, I sometimes long for that safety bar.

But I’m not sure whether I want it more for them – or me.

           

Cookie Rerun

Since Sunday, I've baked six pans of cookie bars -- seven if you count the one that ended up in the garbage can. Some will be mailed to my older son's friends in school on the east coast, friendships forged in middle school -- and these boys are now young men. My older son will be 22 this month and graduates from college in less than two weeks. Others will be mailed to our old neighbor girls...who were in 3rd grade with same son. Still more are for current neighbor girls and others will be plated and head to work with my husband.

I should be writing but I'm baking, booted still from recent ankle surgery. The boot prevents me from walking outside in the unseasonably warm December weather. It's sixty degrees on December 4th in Nebraska. To keep my spirits up, I tell myself how necessary this latest round of surgery was, and it means I'll be able to keep walking well into my dottage. Which sometimes feels like now. 

But as long as I can remember how to turn on the oven, I like to do a little holiday baking....and reminiscing.

Here's a holiday baking 'rerun' blog post from November 29, 2009.

It’s not yet December 1, but my holiday baking is done. Granted, the Buckeyes still need to be dipped in melted chocolate (yes, a Michigander-born girl doesn’t let the Ohio-ness of those tasty treats dissuade), but that’s it.

Why the frenzy? The reasons range from wanting to mail a tin of cookies to son Erik in Germany to having a nice variety for a tray for my department chair husband to take in to the last faculty meeting of the semester and…

…wanting to get it over with. There I said it. The days of joyfully dumping out all my Grandma Rock’s old metal cookie cutters and pulling out her sugar cookie recipe are long gone. Sometimes I wonder why?

Frosted cut-outs and golden cookies studded with M&M’s were just two of my maternal grandma’s specialties. Both my grandmothers excelled in the kitchen. My dad’s mom, widowed when my dad was just 12, supported him and her four older daughters by being the head cook at Mercy Hospital in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Even though she was on her feet cooking all day, Grandma Andrews spent all her time in the kitchen when all her children and grandchildren gathered for holidays. From her sister Carrie, my great aunt, I learned how to make shortcake dotted with butter and Sugar Cakes, melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookies made fluffy with buttermilk.

My mother didn’t like to bake so she taught me when I was very young. Soon I was adept at family favorites from both sides, including chocolate applesauce cake, date nut bars, tomato soup cake, best two egg cake….and inept at things like fudge and one concoction involving powdered sugar, cocoa, milk and Cocoa Krispies. I think it was supposed to be frosting.

In 7^th grade I nearly flunked the sewing part of Home Ec (In middle school, my sons took BASE, which was…home ec with careers added. Sensible addition.). I did much better in the kitchen. I can still remember the day we learned the ‘water displacement’ method to accurately measure peanut butter. It’s slimy, but it works.

So what happened over the years?

Well, writing became a much better (and lower calorie) outlet for my creativity. Then there was my husband’s diabetes diagnosis…and the fact the disease runs on both sides of my family. The oldest of Grandma Andrews’ four daughters was Dorothea, a nurse, who had a foot amputated due to complications from the disease. Also, while both my children enjoy an occasional cookie, and Erik is very partial to the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (recipe listed below), neither seems to have inherited my raging sweet tooth. Finally, the whole working mom balancing act ultimately left no time for laboriously rolling out cookies and decorating with colored sugar, not when there were papers to grade and copyedits due.

Now there are no more papers to grade, not for me. After 15 years at a large university, my husband and I were ready for a lifestyle change. This will be our second holiday season here on the prairie, in the town my husband wanted to live in for nearly 20 years. Long before we had children, we’d drive ‘home’ for the holidays from Flagstaff, Arizona to our folks in Iowa. This Nebraska town on Interstate 80 enchanted him, though at the time I thought he was nuts. And not the kind that go in cookies. Instead we went east. But when a job opened at this university of 6,500 students in his ‘dream town’ at the exact time we were ready for a move, it seemed like fate and faith were aligned.

It’s been a challenging yet wonderful change. Soon I will be realizing my life-long goal of staying home to write fulltime. It’s scary, exhilarating and, apparently, baking inducing.

Maybe next year I will pull out Grandma Rock’s cookie cutters.

What’s your favorite holiday cookie recipe?

Basic Cake Box Cookie/Bar recipe

• 1 box any flavor cake mix (Pillsbury Classic Yellow particularly good)
• 1/3 cup oil
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 1 egg

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients. Add one 12 oz. package chocolate chips or any flavor. Spread in a greased 9 x 13 glass pan. Bake at 350 for ten – twelve minutes til golden brown. Let cool and cut into bars.

You can also use this dough to make cookies. Bake the cookies at 375 degrees.

Roll the yellow cake mix cookie dough into balls and flatten with a sugared glass slightly. 

Bake at 375 7-8 minutes or until golden.

Frost or sprinkle with colored sugar.

You can also use a chocolate cake mix, but it’s drier so use ½ cup oil. Or just make brownies!

Lemon is also a good flavor. Just form into balls and let flatten as they bake. Make a thin glaze out of lemon juice, powdered sugar and a little milk or water.

Or bake in a greased 9 x 13 pan again til done and frost with canned lemon frosting.

Try cherry cake mix, and add cherry chips and almond flavoring and a vanilla frosting glaze or spice and melt caramel and drizzle on top.

Iowa State Fair Cookbook Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup shortening or margarine (I use margarine sticks)
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 12 oz. Package semisweet chocolate chips

In a bowl, combine sugars, shortening, and eggs; beat until light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, soda, powder and salt. Add to shortening mixture. Add oats. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in 375 degree oven 8-10 minutes or until done.

The dough works better after it’s been chilled a bit in the refrigerator. And the best thing about these cookies is you can freeze them as drop cookies or roll up as logs in wax paper. Either way you can bake right from the freezer when you want some.

Tradition

When Tevye belts out the following lyrics in Fiddler on the Roof it always seems like an admonishment.

“Tradition, tradition! Tradition!
Tradition, tradition! Tradition!”

Nothing is more important than keeping traditions, he seems to chide. On this most un-traditional of Thanksgivings the concept of ‘traditions’ resonates with me.

Older son is in Chicago visiting a childhood friend who attends a big university there and whose parents now reside on the East Coast.

Earlier today younger son and dad were on the road to Iowa, listening on Sirius Radio to play-by-play announcer Tony Caridi call the West Virginia University basketball game. They had Thanksgiving dinner with one of my brother’s and his family (the other, a cop, has to work). Tomorrow they’ll head to the family alma mater for the WVU vs. Iowa State football game…and root against the alma mater.

Our Iowa State academic roots go deep, but our athletic hearts belong to WVU… where we spent 15 years.

My mom and I were invited next door (tho stayed home) and another neighbor brought us over the most magnificent cake to thank us “for being such good neighbors.”  Both here on the prairie and in Morgantown, WV we have been blessed with wonderful neighbors.

A lifetime ago my husband and I made a decision not to travel on the holidays. Incidents like  backing down an interstate on-ramp in a blinding snowstorm and spending the night in a Red Cross shelter contributed to this decision.

Last year we finally broke our vow and spent Thanksgiving with all my in-laws so we could celebrate a beloved aunt’s 95th birthday the day after.

We also like to be home - our home - for the holidays.

I know each family out there has its own traditions: some spend the holidays the same place their entire childhood and adult life. To each their own. That’s the real beauty of traditions.

When my three siblings and I were growing up we adhered to a strict Christmas ‘schedule.’ Church on Christmas Eve (except the year we ALL had stomach flu; God Bless my mother!), open one present on Christmas Eve, and stockings and the rest of the presents on Christmas morning. If we were at Grandma and Grandpa Rock’s shrimp cocktail was de rigeur.

Then I married a man with pure Danish roots. This Scandinavian family opened all their presents on Christmas Eve.

Heresay!

Needless to say, our son or sons (depending on if the older one is in the country…but that’s another story) adhere to ‘my’ family’s traditions.

Another tradition that’s biting the dust this year is putting up the tree the night of Thanksgiving or the day after. For years a dear friend in M’town would join us for dinner and good naturedly help with the decorating…which commenced the minute the last bite of pumpkin pie was eaten.

Today I’m in a boot, having had ankle surgery a couple weeks ago. My mom (who has lived with us for nearly a decade-and-a-half) stayed home to keep me company instead of going off to my brother’s. Decorating for Christmas will have to wait till the men are home and can haul things up from the storage room.

Recently I just finished reading Anna Quindlen’s eloquent memoir “Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake.” She writes beautifully in her chapter on faith about her family tradition of reading aloud Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” with her three children and husband every Christmas Eve.

No doubt when/if my children have children of their own way down the road - and those children of my sons come to visit - one present will be opened on Christmas Eve and the rest saved for after-stockings on Christmas morning.

The rest is fluid. And embracing the fluidity of life is the best tradition of all.