<p>It helped that both Ss spent their summers at away camps since middle school. But since they have both flown the coop for good now, I find myself looking at their baby pictures more often than ever.
Here’s hoping S2 makes it back home for Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>Williamsdad,</p>
<p>I’m not a single parent so it wasn’t as hard for me. But I know you’ll gradually feel more normal, especially when you settle into a habit (text, email, phone) of communicating with your son on some predictable basis. </p>
<p>It was surprisingly hard for me when my older kid went off; less so for my younger.</p>
<p>But, he will be a sophomore at Williams and maybe it will help you to know that not only did he love his first year (it wasn’t perfect - but really, what is?), he was there this summer and during the two weeks he’s been home, he’s been constantly making plans for his fall EC’s and courses and in short, like all of his friends, he is totally involved with the school and its offerings. </p>
<p>I’d say your S has a better than even chance of feeling the same.</p>
<p>My husband cried a lot last year, but only a little this year. We got a book called “Letting Go” by Karen Coburn and I think it helped. I just kept reminding myself how excited my son was to be at college and how smoothly both of his move-ins had gone. Remembering how much fun I had in college helped, too.</p>
<p>Didn’t cry–until I saw the mess they left in their rooms!</p>
<p>Didn’t cry the day I dropped S off, but cried plenty before and after. He’s my only child, and what makes it worse is that his bipolar disorder made life with him sheer hell until he stabilized at around 15 years old. So I’ve only had a few years with him being an absolute delight, and now he’s gone. 
</p>
<p>Damn, I hate it when I tear up at work…</p>
<p>laxtaxi:</p>
<p>Who are you? Are you a professional writer? God, that was good. I couldn’t even begin to describe those feelings as well as you did, even if I did it in my native tongue. I haven’t read your PM yet, but I wanted to write back right away, so I did. I will read it and PM you right back.</p>
<p>I was going to PM the rest of the message to laxtaxi, but thought better of it. I mean, if I can’t bare my feelings as an anonymous poster, than what is the point of this thread?</p>
<p>Here’s what I wrote:</p>
<p>laxtaxi:</p>
<p>For me, it is very complicated. My son came to live with me when he was twelve, because he has a “disfunctional?” mother. I had already remarried, and although I had told my wife before that I would always see my son and I would never stop loving him, and she said she understood, she always was mean to him after he moved in. I had two daughters with her already, or I would have left her in a jiffy. Sometimes I still think I should have; like it was “dishonorable and undignified”-I can’t think of better words-not to. But then I looked at my little daughters and and my “dignity and honor” mattered not at all. My son usually kept to his own room, because rows tended to occur when he didn’t. When I got home at night, I went down to his room, of course, for I knew he was all alone, and to go back to his mother was not a choice either he or I could bear. My wife of course then accused me of loving my son more than my daughters, and I have drifted so far from her I now feel she’s a stranger. So when I left him at college what I felt worse about was that I couldn’t make his life better while he was with me, and I felt I was leaving a beautiful sad little boy all alone. God, it’s been tough!! We are both more than a little bitter about it.
Now when I come back home I expect my wife to act like she can now start “her own family”, but of course I will never forgive her, and it feels as if I allowed it I would be betraying my son and all the pain and loneliness (she poisoned the girls’ minds against him) she caused him cannot be forgotten. And how could I really love anyone so mean and petty?</p>
<p>Well, gotta go.</p>
<p>Sorry to say my emotional roller coaster began the week before as we packed, when he would leave to visit friends I would sob. I cried a little after his matriculation ceremony as we said good bye but bawled in the car and off and on throughout the week. It was such a huge change to our family dynamics. I was so happy for him, but there was a hole in my heart that just hurt. We are now at two and a half weeks - I await the e-mails (they are better than the calls or texts) but no more tears. Through it all I knew he was in a great place and as time passes I am more and more confident about that. Ask me this question in a few weeks when I haven’t seen him in a month, I’ll let you know how I am???</p>
<p>Williamsdad, that all sounds very sad and difficult. I hope however things work out that your girls feels supported and know you love them. I’m sorry for how your son was treated. I hope this phase in his life finds him surrounded by the love and acceptance that he deserves! You sound like a great dad, so if you have regrets about how things worked out for you son at home, at least know that by having you he has something countless kids don’t.</p>
<p>^^<br>
Yeah, he’s still had a fairly privileged life. And I think that to him, Williams will be kind of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts. I mean, my son didn’t exactly live in the closet under the stairs like Harry did, but he will still prefer to live at Williams-Hogwarts more than he liked living at home. He spent five weeks in the Summer Science Program during the summer, and while I was helping him carry his stuff upstairs -aided by the invaluable Eph mooovers- several young men and women came up to him and embraced him and asked how he’d been. They were all smiles, and he looked REALLY happy. That was really comforting to me; now that I think of it, he’ll be a lot happier there, and I should be happy, not sad. I will try my best.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for your posts, 'rentof2. They were great.</p>
<p>No. These kids are usually going to exciting places and off to new and different experiences. On the other hand a friend lost her 19 year old son last weekend. That is something worth crying about.</p>
<p>Well, it’s certainly worth crying about, and it’s the ultimate tragedy, but the pain that I and others felt at watching the best part of our lives “pass us by” is certainly real. But the thought of him being happier there than at home made me feel loads better.</p>
<p>We didn’t have the complexity of your life, williamsdad, but we dropped our boy off at Amherst with, surprisingly for my wife, nary a tear. We were and are anxious – though he is extremely bright, he is quite dyslexic and has a sleep disorder. He was sufficiently anxious that he hadn’t slept for a few nights before. But, we had a strong sense while we were there that this was a terrific place for him – a place that would recognize his strengths and seemed extremely supportive. For this reason, my wife who cried when he went off (as our oldest) to K, 1, 2, …, and I think even HS and cried at some of our Special Ed meetings at HS says she didn’t cry. [Plus we ran into some folks whose situations were much more worrisome and scary than ours]. No tears at the time and none since. </p>
<p>I suspect my wife will cry when we bring our youngest to college in two or three years. They’ve been unusually close as we dealt with a major medical issue (in the same way as my son and I worked with the learning disabilities).</p>
<p>Somehow, I don’t see this as seeing the best years of my life passing by. We love our kids and love having them around but will I think flourish with more time to devote to our other passions. But, I think that in many dimensions we’ve been very fortunate so our response may be quite different from others.</p>
<p>I have read that a person could be dyslexic and bright at the same time, but I have a hard time understanding how they can learn if it’s so hard to read. A large ammount of courage and determination must be involved, and if a college as good as Amherst accepted him, he must be an exceptional person indeed. Gifts of that sort are a little like magic, aren’t they?</p>
<p>Oh wow…here I am at work crying like a baby and I still have another year until by only daughter goes away…your story has really touched me. My hope for you is that you can take comfort in the fact that your son is embarking on “the best days of his life”…It sounds like he will be really happy at college. He is a lucky boy to have such a caring and supportive father :)</p>
<p>Last August, when my daughter (my youngest) was gearing up for her freshman year, was hard. Instead of crying, I just had a lot of anxiety about everything in my life. I kept up a good front for my D’s sake (I think she was probably doing the same thing), and getting her to college was so hectic I didn’t have much time to dwell on it. But after I’d helped her move into her room and taken her to Walmart, I went back to my motel room and laid on the bed and looked at the ceiling. Man, those ceiling tiles were the most depressing thing I’d ever seen in my life! It felt weird, knowing that my D was probably laying on her bed, looking at an equally unfamiliar ceiling, to not be sharing this experience with her, to not be the ever-present, supportive parent I’d always been. I felt like an ax had just fallen, forever severing the last 18 years of our lives together.</p>
<p>This lasted for about 3 weeks. Those days, I finally understood that the phrase “a hole in my heart” is not metaphorical. I could actually feel an ache.</p>
<p>This time it wasn’t so bad. Now, instead of feeling nothing but sadness, I feel an incredible feeling of gratitude that my children exist, even if they’re not with me. They’re two of the most wonderful humans on this earth and I just marvel at my good fortune. </p>
<p>I’ve also been having a lot of fun, socializing spontaneously, making weekend plans without worrying about leaving D alone at home, not having to make dinner every night. I no longer have to be a role model, so am watching copious amounts of fascinating TV with much pleasure (I didn’t really watch TV for the last few years and we don’t have cable so I’m catching up on everything I’ve missed— Dog Whisperer, Project Runway, etc). I’ve also resurrected most of my old hobbies. Life goes on…</p>
<p>williamsdad, it has been an interesting road. His brain is kind of like a very high-powered microprocessor (high IQ) combined with dial-up access for input and output. When he was much younger, a psychologist who reviewed his test results said, “We call this profile severely gifted. I’d hate to be living in his skin.” Kids like this have a high propensity for drug/alcohol and other problems, but we’ve been very fortunate and are very impressed with his character. He is a very determined, goal-oriented, strategic, hard-working kid. He actually got into a lot of good colleges. We had to alter his education somewhat to help him improve his reading and writing over the course of HS and it worked (99+ percentile on the CR and Writing parts of the SAT and the highest grade in Harvard Summer School’s version of the expository writing class Harvard requires of its freshmen). But, the effort required is very high and stamina is an issue. So, the open curriculum at Amherst that lets him take one course that is reading/writing intensive and balance that with courses with are more conceptual (math, chemistry, economics) or visual (studio art) is going to be a big advantage. It won’t be a breeze, but he’ll be playing more to his strengths than he could in high school.</p>
<p>And, his college essay was about finding magic in his life. So, you may be closer than you think.</p>
<p>It sounds like you have had a pretty tough row to hoe (is that the right expression?) but it sounds like your son is already happy at Williams. You deserve a lot of credit for helping get him to that point.</p>
<p>SWTCAT:</p>
<p>You know, after he came back from the Summer Science Program I had this urge to spend every available moment with him laughing, because while he was gone I kept getting a flashback of my son looking directly into my eyes and laughing with me. He looked sooo beautiful in my mind’s eye I wanted to have an even more fixed image to remember when he left. I even considered quitting my job so I could be with him ALL the time for the final four weeks. I didn’t, but I rushed home from work every day and just sat down with him telling old jokes or remembering funny things that happenned in our life together. I played golf with him or went bike-riding in a nearby path every day, or we went to the movies and laughed while we talked about our favorite parts in the movie. I kissed him good night every night and woke him before I left for work in the morning, just to remind him I love him and to tell him I’d be back soon. And the thing is, I can’t understand how I was so STUPID not to have enjoyed my time with him as intensely before. I felt the same way when my mom died, but somehow I forgot that hard-learned lesson. I did not cherish every instant of my time with my son. I will now cherish my time with my daughters, and with my son when he comes to visit.
Well, anyway, I wanted to tell you that if I still had another year to live together with my S/D like you do, I would enjoy it intensely. Don’t squander a second.</p>
<p>Shawbridge: Wow.</p>
<p>Williamsdad-not sure if this is an option, but the week before my son went to school (he is a junior now), we got a golden retriever puppy:). George! George is the best- of course, there is no substituting my son. But lucky for us, he is only and hour 1/2 half away. Home quite often. The puppy definately helped.
When my daughter (a hs senior) goes off to school, I am pleading for a Newfoundland! That’s daugter’s favorite kind of dog- We hope this makes her want to come home for visits!!!</p>
<p>Ps- cats work well too!!!</p>
<p>I actually bred Newfoundlands as a hobby for a few years in Mexico. I kept my favorite, a wonderfully beautiful and smart female. I sometimes absentmindedly call her “hija”-daughter in Spanish. My daughters giggle when I do.</p>
<p>I honestly believe one of the reasons my son chose Williams over Northwestern is that he knew that if he lived in Evanston I would show up unannounced and say I was just passing through, or that I would want to spend every weekend with him. Oh well, time to turn the page. How did laxtaxi put it? “There’s a new chapter to write, and it’s really hard to stare at a blank page, knowing that no one can fill it but you.” Damn, that was well put.</p>