These birds have flown

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. — Kahlil Gibran

Q

Over the past six months I’ve been trying to come to terms with a profound change in our household. While the common wisdom seems to be that mothers feel the change the most, let me tell you that dads feel it too. At least this one does.

At long last, our kids are grown. While two of them remain under our thumb, finishing up the last couple of years of college on our ticket, they are all — in every sense of the word — responsible, thinking, independent adults.

The oldest, almost 28, has been on his own for some time now and is  in graduate school in Canada. Our youngest, at 22, is a senior at Indiana University, and her other brother, soon to be 24, is a junior there.

While the three of them haven’t lived at home all at once for some time now, and while their transition away from home has been gradual, this is the first year that all have lived out of town and far away. The break now seems complete, and it is harder for me than I thought it would be.

My wife and I married at 23, right out of college. Our oldest boy came along a year and a half later. Another son four years later, and his little sister 16 months after that. Those early years were both a joy for me and a struggle as I learned parenting on the fly.

I cringe when I think of some of the mistakes I’ve made as a father. The tone of voice I’ve often taken. The impatience I’ve shown. And I sometimes wonder what that means to them now.

But I also hope I did some good things, and I think I did. We had fun in our house, with a lot of laughter and a lot of good long talks about little things and about big issues. I think they are better for it. The question is whether the good I did outweighed my stumbles.

This transition also has ramifications for our marriage. In the past 30 years, my wife and I have had exactly a year and a half alone with each other. With the kids now grown, we’re settling into a different pace — one without parent-teacher conferences, orthodontist appointments, scouts,  marching band or Futurama. Assuming we each live a long and healthy life, we have many years left to explore the uncharted territories of a marriage without children at home.

All that said, it will never be a marriage without children. My parents told me long ago that they never stop thinking about my sister, brother and me, and they never stop worrying. They came to my rescue more than once after I left home. And they remain a sounding board when I need somebody to listen to what’s going on in my life.

I hope I might have the same kind of relationship with my kids, as they each in their own way venture off into the great unknown.