Gone To College Now

He was raised in a family with a tradition of good goodbyes.

In the summer whenever anyone left the cottage in the woods, those of us remaining would wave as they drove down the long two-rut drive. We would stand beside the big White Pine and they would wave back until they disappeared into the trees and were gone.

From the beginning he applied that tradition to the two of us. At the end of a weekend in Austin, I'd get in the car to leave for Houston, and he'd stand in the street in the glow of the streetlight, waving and waving as I drove down the street until I turned the corner and was gone.

And when he got older, when he would fly back to Austin at the end of a weekend in Houston, he would wave to me from his window seat on the plane as I stood in the boarding area, waving until his plane taxied away, raced down the runway, climbed into the air, turned to the west and was gone.

And so we come to tonite.

Tonite we waved goodbye again, but this was a big one. He had packed his stuff into boxes that Trudy had scrounged and a trunk from his mother that will last for many years. We sat around for a while, trying to avoid the unavoidable. We took some pictures of us with him sitting on the couch. And then he got into his mother's van, and they drove off into the night. I stood in the glow of the streetlight waving, and he rolled down his window and waved back in large sweeps of his arm until they turned the corner and were gone.

And now it's nighttime here. And it's quieter. And there's a room at the end of the hall that won't be quite the same again. And tomorrow at this time, the dog won't know what to do. Or me.

And I have tears in my eyes, because this is so bittersweet. This moment has finally arrived.

He's gone to college.

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