August 22, 2016 | From my perch in our newly emptied nest, I like the idea that I still have a lot of commencing to do. It's time for more firsts of my own.
Our youngest child began her college career today. She took her first step into the collegiate world of living with strangers, paying rent and utilities, grocery shopping and cooking for one, finding the way around a huge campus, and learning the differences between high school classes and university-level coursework, among a mountain of other firsts.
Because she's our last child, she's always been the one to usher in the lasts for my husband and I. She was the last child to lose a baby tooth, last child to remove the training wheels, last to get braces, last wisdom teeth extraction, last musical costume alteration, last choir recital. Last high school graduation. Last to move out.
I think she realized at a young age she was destined to herald in the lasts. She's always been aware, and amazingly patient, with our need for one more photo or one more hug. Every school day, beginning in pre-school, she graciously paused at the front of the school to turn and wave goodbye to me before entering the building. And every day, I was waiting in the car, watching for her to turn and wave. I appreciated each and every one of them.
I recognized the trait in her, because I was the youngest child of my parents. My mother called me the caboose. I followed in footsteps. I brought up the rear. I was the keeper of their LASTS.
Our dear daughter has been the proverbial sweeper at the end of our offspring parade - the period dotting the end of each family chapter. She has been the keeper of our LASTS.
Even though these endings signaled the last time my husband and I would have many of these experiences, they were still firsts for our daughter. I was reminded at her high school commencement exercises that commencement doesn't mean the end to something. In fact, some of its synonyms are birth, dawn, genesis, threshold, and launch. So, it's true that today is the last First Day of College for our family, but it is also an expansive commencement into a whole world of firsts our daughter has yet to discover and experience.
From my perch in our newly emptied nest, I like the idea that I still have a lot of commencing to do. It's time for more firsts of my own.
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