Pomp and Circumstance

Pomp and Circumstance -Elgar

I remember the day Andrew and I took Meghan to the Boston Museum of Science in the pouring rain in a stroller I had salvaged from someone’s trash heap and then reupholstered in denim and still Meghan was cute enough for someone to exclaim over her, and then turn to me and say, “Enjoy her, before you know it she’ll be grown and gone.”  I thought, “Yeah, right.”  After all I was twenty and knew everything.  

Well, here I am and she is grown and gone, but thankfully living twenty minutes away.  Even more than that, now our fourth daughter has grown and gone and that is really hard to believe.  We have now said good bye to four daughters, and really there is no kidding myself; it is for ever.  And you know what, just because I’ve done this three other times does not make it any easier.  And it wasn’t supposed to happen this fast.  Our life at home keeps getting a little smaller and a little quieter.  

Yet, it is a very humbling and satisfying to see them grown into the people that I wanted them to become.  It actually isn’t good bye; my children have become my friends and confidants. 

The graduation ceremony was a big snoozer with Congressman Walt Minnick as speaker.  He forgot he had already won the election and spent most of his time at the podium running for office.  

My camera battery had died so Andrew had to miss most of the preliminaries and stood around outside the maintenance buildings of University of Idaho with the battery charger plugged in.  He had taken my phone so Jarrett could call him when Aileen’s school was being announced but when we called to tell him; we got my answering machine.  That battery in the phone was about  dead too so it was plugged in inside the car and down the parking lot from Andrew and the camera charger, so although he did have the phone, it was doing him absolutely no good.  Like it seems he always does, he came in the nick of time and got to miss all the boring bits but was there for Aileen’s name to be called.

Aileen has landed a job in Seattle with a lab and will be living with Caitlin, Zac and Freyja in the Queen Ann district.