Today's The Day ...

On Sunday she flew with her Dad to Chicago. She expertly packed two duffel bags and a suitcase. She knows, by feel, the difference between 48 pounds and 50. This is not her first rodeo.

In many ways she’s so prepared. (Certainly more than me.)

Today she moves into her dorm.

Today’s the Day. And I’m not there.

“I’ve dreaded this day for two years,” I told a friend at lunch. 

When we moved to Germany two years ago with a three year contract we realized she would age out ahead of us. It has loomed in big and small ways for the last twenty-four months.

In many ways it was good it was a full summer. It kept our minds off of the inevitable.

The summer was a blur with Millie’s IB exams in the beginning of May, the visit of three of her friends at the end. Her prom (which in Deutschland is a family event) and then her graduation four days later. We had a whirl-wind day connecting in The Germ with American friends we did life with in China. We then flew and ferried to the blue and white paradise of Greece, where all the busyness of the previous months faded away and tans took. We relaxed and bonded. We got blonder and grew kinder.

We came home only to put the girls on the plane to America the next day, and boarded our own flight to Venice the day after that. We celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary in Italy. Venti in Venice. Molto Romantico.

In America the younger girls went to the Rocky Mountains with our church youth group. Millie and I shopped college supplies for two full days . We drank lots of Starbucks. We hit Target and TJs and Homegoods and Marshalls.

When Sean arrived we spent time with his family, cuddled nieces and nephews, caught up with friends, binged on “Christian chicken” from Chick-fil-A and stocked up on a year’s supply of antiperspirant, tampons and American Eagle jeans.

Work took Sean to the corporate office and the girls and I headed to the True North Strong and Free. We enjoyed time in Canada with my family and did the kinds of things we’d do if we lived closer – lunch with aunts, the tea house with my grandma, pedicures with my mom, and lots of time just being together.

Two days after landing back in Europe we welcomed friends from Illinois and jet-lagged together. We also got to catch two Women’s UEFA cup games in The Netherlands and give them a little taste of our life in the Germ.

Millie spent four August days in Spain with a friend, soaking in more sunshine and savoring the last bits of her freedom from studies. 

We spent the next weekend as a family in Berlin, soaking in the history and horror of our host country’s capital.

Most of Europe experienced the blasting heat wave dubbed Lucifer this summer. In Florence they actually shuttered the Uffizi due to high temperatures. Dante’s inferno literally came to Firenzia. But not Germany. They were like, “Not today (or any other day), Satan.”

“RIP tan.” Millie quipped.

I would miss her sarcasm and wit. (The younger two are nowhere near as saltzig.)

We huddled under sweatshirts and slept under down. The premature autumnal August was Lenten-like. It came with the final long good bye. A full week of the “Sunday Night Feeling.”

I’d catch the girls cuddling together while watching Netflix.

I caught myself tearing up … when I walked in to her room, or sat across from her at the dinner table. It had started in Berlin … eyes glistening at a restaurant and Millie said, “oh, Mom,” in a combination of frustration and pity. I’d slide my sunglasses on, despite being inside on a rainy day, and hope others didn’t see the tears sliding down my mom cheeks.

Sean made it his mission to announce how many days we had left to enjoy her being with us.

But for me the worst part was going to her room, as the closet and dressers grew increasingly barer as the suitcases plumped.

This is the bitter sweetness of raising children. Every minute we’ve spent with her brought us one moment closer to the day she moves on. From the moment my sweet man-child of a husband cut through her healthy, juicy umbilical cord 18 years ago, she has been slowly divorcing herself from the need of us.

And … This is how it should be.

(It’s just not exactly how I planned.)

Today is the Day-  that the sweet man who lovingly panted and breathed with me (and fed me ice chips and massaged my hands) as we brought her into the world 18 years ago, sweetly patched me in on FaceTime as he helped her arrange her half of a postage stamp sized dorm room.

I could be involved, despite being 4,000 miles and seven time zones away.

And the moments she and I spent planning and prepping everything from her succulents to sheets were pleasant memories revived. I was there as they unfurled her rose colored (or what Millie said has now been dubbed Millennial pink) spread over her semi-lofted bunk. And watched as they maneuvered around the frustration of ruptured laundry pods.

Today’s the Day.