Bed, Bath & Beyond

On mornings when she drove carpool, sometimes my mother would let me know I had crumbs around my mouth. Before I could wipe them away, she’d already licked her own fingers like you would if collating papers, and gone about dabbing the corners of my mouth. I’d like to say this happened before picking up the other kids, but it was random and often we had an audience.

My carpool memories are of us crammed into my dad’s white 1969 Mustang convertible with burgundy interior. Not sure why she sometimes drove his three-speed manual steering drafty child carriage instead of her station wagon, but maybe our Ford Country Squire wasn’t the dependable family ride its faux wood siding conjured. The Mustang steering was so tight she’d ask for help from whomever was in front, my sister or me, and we’d lean in to move the stubborn wheel.

We didn’t have any carpools with my kids but I do recall that moment when the ride to school changed, probably as early as third or maybe it was fourth grade, when the school drop off necessitated omitting any form of motherly affection. I still wanted to hug them goodbye and sometimes I’d look around and when the coast was clear, remind them no one was looking and we could get in a quick hug. It was a rushed hug, but a hug nonetheless. Of course, as years passed those drop off hugs all but disappeared.

We started biking to school and then my boys would walk themselves and later on, drive. I’m glad to have had the schools that we did, with great teachers, close by and with a wide variety of people. A slice of real life in an urban enough setting, but still with plenty of green spaces to roam. I’m still getting newsletters from our high school and occasionally I’ll scan them for details on the postponed graduation festivities, but mostly they’re full of the usual back-to-school information, complicated further by this pandemic, information now intended for other families. I wonder how long it will take me to voluntarily opt off this list. Or how many Augusts I will see school buses pass by and remember all these years. I’m swollen with gratitude and memories.

This weekend my younger son leaves for college. I remember the first college drop off two years ago and its 13-hour drive. This younger son is moving just 10 miles away, yet the mental preparations feel the same. He seems relaxed and understandably ready to leave behind the drone of his mother’s voice and nonstop questions which land like a spray of bullets: Should we get two sets of sheets? Which of these comforters do you prefer? Will you take a look at these shower caddies? Certain he’s asking his own: Will she ever stop?

Last weekend we shopped Bed Bath and Beyond for dorm essentials. I hoped to get in and out quickly as pandemic shopping doesn’t afford the luxury of over-analyzing mattress toppers. Besides, he has no interest in a new comforter or towels and washcloths since, budget-minded like his dad, he’s decided to raid our linen closet instead. I remind myself I have boys and unlike my sister’s and my own college preparations, there will be no room theme or patterned comforter. It’s all business and boys’ nests need minimal fuss. I hope he’ll carry good memories in lieu of the current parental annoyances he and I assume most college-bound teens about to leave the nest seem to experience. It was a great shopping trip, the store wasn’t crowded, and we found it all. He’s excited to test out his coffee maker  and try out the mattress topper too, a simulation of life to come.

I think sometimes you must take the lead your child gives you. If he needs a second set of sheets, he reminds me he can simply drive himself to Target. “Let go, woman,” I believe is the message. I’m trying. Really, I am. I joined his college’s parent Facebook group to share information with other freshman parents. One mom’s son is boarding a plane from Singapore and she’s expressing gratitude for other parents who’ve offered to be her son’s in case of emergency, his home away from home. Her vulnerability in letting her only child go is palpable and instantly I’m imagining my own. The wistfulness is coming and I feel it hovering just behind my eyelids.

After he leaves, I expect we’ll walk by his room and his brother’s and notice the picked over state of things – a lamp gone, pillows and clothes, also gone. Like my friend Carol, herself a mother of two college-aged boys, shared when I mentioned how shocking the empty room was two years ago when my first left: “The empty room is the worst. I do the same – going in there, afraid to vacuum up a single bit of DNA in case he needs to be reconstructed somehow…”

Evan, I want you to find your way and in many ways you have. These last few days together likely won’t be a celebration of family moments, but instead a rush to pack you up, even when I might instead want to hold you tight. Just when I’m feeling strong and mighty, I feel those tears waiting in the wings, asking, is it show time yet? Are you ready for us? Just as our children will, these tears also will come and go, and neither’s timing is something we can predict.

As different as my children are so are their college experiences. One moved six states away, and the other will move one county over. One walked New York City blocks to class and the other, at least in the beginning, will attend most classes online from his dorm’s XL twin bed. This pandemic finds the class of 2020 in an unusual situation. Face masks and hand sanitizer will become their closest companions, and finding a way to socialize while masked will hopefully in a few months become a distant memory. Please, vaccine, please come soon.

I can’t wait for so much of it. That feeling of newness and excitement he’ll have as he navigates college life. The intensity of the classes on topics that intrigue him –goodbye French classes! – that pushes him out of his comfort zone and into better ways of thinking, new ways of connecting the dots. He will soak it all in and when I see him again, there will be stories to share.

I look back at life with both our boys and can’t help but smile. What a ride this has been and still is, for all of us! So much is still ahead. I hope when they look back in their own rearview mirrors, that their memories are even a fraction as sweet.