Going to College

Mothers are born. She opens her eyes and suddenly has found herself in a world where an all consuming fire is stoked in her soul, and everyone else in the world takes their place behind her baby. She spends her new life loving, protecting, teaching, and nurturing her baby in preparation for the life he will live beyond her, which means that she has to let go, just a tiny little bit, in every day after. She has to let him fall, let him learn for himself that the stove is hot, and that actions have consequences, terrifying consequences and scenarios that rattle around in a mother’s brain, usually in the quiet dark of a sleepless night when everything seems possible. When the mother and the baby are born, it doesn’t seem possible that one day, that baby will leave home and 18 years is not long when compared to a lifetime. A morning will come when the car is packed with XL twin bedding, posters, and ramen, and the second you leave the driveway, everything will change, one journey ends while another begins. This was that day for me, a day I grieved long before it came and a day that I am still trying to make sense of, because it arrived much sooner than I wanted. August 22, 2024, Going to College.

Jackson, if you ever find this and read this, I miss you. It’s not the same without you and if I could, I would go back in time do it all over again.