Senior Moments: Leaving Home

This weekend we were up at the Russian River, the whole family, including Ann. We had two cars. Whitman, our high school senior, asked to drive the 90 minutes home by himself, as we were not leaving till later. 

I said yes because I know he needs more rope, needs to feel we believe he can handle it, needs to know that this is his future: going where he wants, when he wants, the way he wants. 

Of course, he is far from that moment. But he needs to try it on and prepare for it.

Seventeen years ago I spent Labor Day weekend in Sacramento at my parents' house, bringing our oldest son Evan up for a visit. The day after Labor Day, having just come home from work, my mother called to tell me they had been waiting all weekend for the results of tests on my father who, she then told me, had cancer.

A year later, Susan's father would die from cancer in August, Whitman would be born in September, and my father would die a week later from his cancer which had eventually matasticized into his brain. Seventeen years later, this boy who was such a gift during that time of such loss, hugged and kissed his grandmother, and drove away, leaving one home where we had spent the weekend (Russian River) to drive himself to another (in San Francisco) where, over dinner, we spoke of colleges and began the process of him leaving home next year to continue his education.

As we drove home earlier that afternoon, Whitman having called to assure us he had arrived safely, Ann spoke about her senior year in high school, how 200 of the 300 boys in her senior class had already left to fight in World War Two, that you could volunteer at 17-and-a-half for whichever branch you wanted or wait until you were 18 and you were drafted. 

Her brother left home to fight in Europe, at Utah Beach and the Battle of the Bulge. He's 92-years-old and still hanging on. He is not ready to leave his home where his three daughters care for him on this last stretch of his journey.

We spend our youth dreaming of leaving home so we may create a home of our own, one where we are kept company by those children who left the home we created for them, and now gather with us in that same home we do not want to leave but know, eventually, we must.

Comments

[Michaela Z.]

These are truly beautiful thoughts, Mr. Burke. I've come to expect nothing less! I can still remember the wise words you used to send off my senior class, and will dig them up to re-read to this day.

I would like to assure you that these postings are just as appreciated among those who are only a few years past their own departures as they are by parents and educators. These feelings are never gone, but instead are altered, augmented, and amended by new experiences. Thank you for much-needed reminiscence and wisdom.