Time

A new chapter begins: Asa has gone to college. That's just as it should be, of course, but there is this big downside, which is that he's not here with us any more. Of course we saw this separation coming a long time ago, but that doesn't seem to do much to cushion the shock.

Tesi and I drove him out to Amherst on Saturday, helped him move his stuff into his dorm room on Sunday morning and stayed around the rest of the day for various welcoming activities.

On Monday morning we got together one more time before heading home. The three of us strolled around the campus for half an hour, talking of this and that and finally coming to rest on a bench where there is a view of far-away wooded hills. A little more dawdling, and then it really was time to cut loose and let him go to Freshman Orientation. We stood up. We hugged. We said some kind of parting words. Tesi briefly broke into sobs. A few more words, and then he walked away. We stood watching the back of that dear familiar figure, the big hairy head on the tall thin frame, ambling down a path to somewhere. Then it was time to go to the car.

It was a perfect late-summer day. A classic collegiate quadrangle stretched out all green before us. Above us there were tall pines against a clear blue sky. All around us were hundreds of young people--so young!--some buzzing in animated bunches--others solitary--all making their way to somewhere as they began their own new chapters.

As we reached the other end of the quad we saw a young father with a baby swaddled on his chest. He, too, was walking dreamily along in the bright morning. Presumably the dream he was wrapped in was the new parent's cocoon of "Here we are, me and my baby, the two of us in our happy little world". Nothing was said, but afterwards it turned out that both Tesi and I had had a strong impulse to speak to this stranger, had been wanting to say something like "I hope you savor every moment of the next eighteen years, because then they grow up and go to college."