May has always been a relatively hectic month but this year’s may be the topper. The first weekend of the month was my wife’s birthday, the second was Mother’s Day, the third weekend my youngest daughter graduated from high school, the next day we flew out to look at two colleges in Massachusetts and Vermont, we returned in time for the fourth weekend (our 28th wedding anniversary) and today the youngest daughter turns 18.
The events involving the youngest are the most major. My wife and I completed nine consecutive years of having kids at Roosevelt High School. We will be “empty nesters” and beginning (hopefully) the midway point of nine consecutive years of having kids in college. With grad school, that means we not only fulfill all parents’ dreams of having three in college at once, they’ll be in three different states (Nebraska, Missouri and Massachusetts), Perhaps most significant, all three daughters are now “adults” — which if I wasn’t old already I think makes me more “officially” old.
But not only do I know what my parents went through when I was growing up (and I was far less behaved), that insight has helped me know we’re sending three well-adjusted, independent women out to conquer the world, each in their own way and with their own amazing individual talents and personalities. That’s a very worthwhile price to pay for being old.
One day you’re gonna want to go
I hope we taught you everything you need to know
“Gracie,” Ben Folds, Songs for Silverman
