Moving Away

My youngest child--and youngest daughter--has been busily hauling boxes down from the attic since just before her recent graduation from high school. They're filled, I'm guessing, with the usual childhood memorabilia that moms collect on behalf of their kids: report cards and papers from school, little league, cheerleading and gymnastics trophies, artwork long since taken down from the refrigerator.

I sit downstairs and listen to the sounds of it, the boxes being carried to her room, opened, sorted. I'm guessing, too, at the disposition of it: little or none of it will get tossed, a few things like durable art supplies and toys with lesser sentimental ties, will go to the little nephew who lives with us.

Most of it, though, will get reboxed and shipped cross-country to her sister in Northern California. After that, it'll find its way down the coast to San Francisco where she'll be moving in August for culinary school.

I guess until now I've avoided thinking about this. I went to her graduation, picked up boxes and bubble wrap from the U-Haul, sent financial statements to the school. Years before that, I bought her first glove and bat, played catch with her. Spent weekends in hotels when she had gymnastics meets, witnessed injuries, sat at the orthopedist's, carried around her x-rays. Watched "Emeril Live" with her on TV, watched her grow up.

I just didn't realize that all of it was leading to THIS day. The one when all the boxes now accumulating in the dining room will be carried out the door on their way to California. The day before the first night when our last kid will not be sleeping under our roof.

Or even at a friend's, a few miles away, where she could be picked up if not feeling well or feeling homesick or just having a change of heart about that moment, about that place, in her life...

LPK
LiveJournal
7.16.2005