Taking Jacob to College

He's already more organized than most.

Tonight, for the first night of forever, my son sleeps in a bed not of my own.  Yes, he has bunked at camp.  He has slept over.  But tonight he has “moved in” to a place he will now call “home”.  A home not of my making.

He will wake up tomorrow, and breakfast will not be in my kitchen.  He will have his own refrigerator with milk we bought and cereal his sister sent for him, but that will run out and he will be on his own.

He will wake himself, and all the mornings that irritated me will be gone.

Last week.

The four places at our table will be reduced to three.

I can barely remember a time in my life where he wasn’t there.

And he won’t be back in a week.

His wit and sarcastic commentary on life won’t be there while we eat dinner.  I won’t need to buy four boxes of cereal each week, or a pound of deli meat.  Or two bags of bagels.

And I wonder if I’ve done enough.  Have I loved enough?  Have I been there enough?

Me taking a pic of Carina taking a pic of Jacob.

I painstakingly unpacked his clothing, his towels, his toiletries.  I hid little fun things for him.

But he lived with me during the hard years.  He got used to the rough life with me, and he spent a lot of time alone.

I am glad he will be with other people.  I pray he will have healthy friendships.  I am glad he has maintained the ones he has had.  I am glad we had the opportunity to visit one of his friends last week.

I wish we could have met his roommate.  It feels very insecure to leave him alone in a room with some stranger.  But Chris has spent a great deal of time pouring into him.  And I know that those words won’t come back empty. 

We are not leaving Jacob alone.  He is surrounded.

But here.  We feel the emptiness.  And the gladness.  We know he is ready.  We are too, it just hurts.