Two years ago, I was a dead man walking. No…I hadn’t been diagnosed with a terminal disease, been Hope Solo-ed by a Zika-infested mosquito, or been chomped on a zombie. I felt like a dead man walking because our oldest daughter had graduated from high school and, after a busy summer, was a few days from heading off to the University of Alabama, ten long hours from home. Every click of the clock, every digitally back-lit change of the minutes and hours, each check mark on the count-down calendar, every breath was taking me closer to – with apologies to Raymond Chandler – the long goodbye of a parent and child in front of a college dormitory.
We do have two other children – please, know they, too, are deeply and dearly loved – but this would be our first and therefore, presumably, hardest goodbye. How would I let go of the hand that used to eagerly grab mine and demand I hold it while we walked along? How would I let go of the girl who would grab my neck in joy when I got home from work? How would I be able to help her if she couldn’t snuggle next to me as she told me about a life crisis? How does a dad say goodbye? I felt like I was dying…and it was a little more each day.
Fast forward… The night we dropped her off at Riverside Dorm took approximately ten lifetimes from our 3pm assigned move-in time until we had everything unpacked and organized. I had tried to stall…parking further away from the doors, walking slower, taking fewer things each trip (granted – some of that was a trifecta of fatigue, being out of shape, and not being quite as young as I used to be), but finally, the boxes were unloaded. We had eaten dinner – well, to be more accurate, we all pushed food around our plates, like Minnesota snow-plows in the middle of a snow storm, not really making progress but putting on a good show for those who watched – while being very careful to not look into each other's eyes, lest the dams burst and a flash-flood of tears overwhelm us all. We had made a last Wally World run for those little things we wanted to get. And, knowing the stitches holding our breaking hearts would hurt like hell no matter how long we delayed, we decided we would say our goodbyes that night and leave in the morning for our long drive home.
We pulled up to a spot near the dorm and got out of the truck. Hugs were long and surprisingly quiet, no one trusting their voice. All around we heard laughter, music, and the bright sound of playfulness but it sounded in our ears like clunking cast iron. We were surrounded in grief: it was goodbye time. When it was my turn, I hugged her tight, then held her head between my hands. Squeeking out the Aaronic benediction, I blessed our daughter even as she cried, “No, daddy…” With a tear-moistened thumb, I traced the cross that was placed on her head in baptism. And, with a final kiss from both Momma and me, she turned and walked-ran away.
I am writing this for all parents who are preparing to part from their first child who is heading to a college or university, whether its across the county or across the continent. I am especially writing for dads. Too often, dads are expected to be the stoic block of emotional granite, neither shaken nor stirred by the drama of a child leaving home. It’s the moms who are expected to be wrecks, emotionally speaking, while their first-born leaves the nest for the first time. Around me, the men whose children had gone off to college were these Spartan-like macho characters, albeit with more gut and less guns than portrayed in movies. When I would try to express to them what I was feeling, I got strange looks and more than a couple of snide comments about my feminine side, a slap on the back, and with an unstated “suck it up,” I was told its gonna be OK.
They were right, of course, but in the summer of 2015 it was far from OK, and neither was I. I needed someone to listen and desperately wanted another dad, whose heart had broken and then mended, to share their survival story with me. Had just one man, one dad, talked to me and listened to my pain, I might not have crashed and burned, emotionally, the way I did a few months later. (I allude to this in “The Devil is in the Dumbassery” on this blog.)
My brother-in-law, Josh – who, by the way, is one of the smartest and deeply God-fearing men I know – offered me some words of counsel from his own experience of a daughter leaving home the previous year. He said this is what we have been readying our daughters to do: be smart, thinking, deliberate women of faith who are ready to step out into the world. We have done our part, now we trust in God's Fatherly hand to do what we are unable to do. And then, he listened to my story and my grief, and with his “been there, done that” counsel, we commiserated together as dads and as family.
I tell this story so that you, dear reader – and especially those who are looking at a day when you have to tell your own son or daughter “goodbye” – are not alone and so you kniw that some of us are willing to admit how hard it was. I hope your story never becomes as dark as mine did. I pray that you do experience a grief of sorts – that is a demonstration of love and affection at your child who waved his or her own goodbye. I hope you miss your DS or DD (Dear Son or Dear Daughter. Unless, of course, they call at 2am because they ran out of money at Taco Bell and want you to transfer $7.89 to their account to cover their late night need to munch on tacos. In this case, the D might stand for something less adoring…but I digress…) And if you need someone to listen, call your pastor, your brother-in-law, or someone who loves you. If need be, drop me a line – I’ll listen.
If you reach out to me, what I'll tell you is what my pastor shared with me as he went through this feeling two different times: as Christian parents, we already gave our son or daughter away – well, more accurately, we returned them to our Father in heaven through the waters of Holy Baptism. Through that holy washing away of sins and adopting as sons and daughters, God pledged His eternal faithfulness to that child sealed in the blood of Jesus. God will not abandon His children. More than that, He will not break His promise. So, even as I struggled with my feelings and thoughts (many of which were lying to me), I clung to God's promise for my daughter given in her baptism. And, without even realizing it that night in front of the dorm, I did the best thing for us: I blessed her with God's own Word and reminded us all of His baptismal promise to all of us.
She will be leaving, again, in a week and a couple days to begin her junior year. Time is flying by. And as days come and years go, there will be more tears and choked-out goodbyes. But they’re grounded, now, and in faith I trust that no matter what there will always be at least one more “Welcome home,” into the eternal homecoming of the resurrection.
Love you, Kiddo. Have a great year. And, you can come home whenever you want. Except Tuesday. Then, call first. -Poppy
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