The Graduates

 She feels so small when I hug her goodbye. 

It surprises me because she usually fills whatever room she inhabits with an outsized personality. I forget that her physical form is quite petite.

I’m not the hugging type, but with the kids, I embrace this hypocrisy. Usually holding on a few beats too long …for them … as we part.

These days, we greet each other this way, too.

“Enough, Mom! I’ll be here all week.”

My daughter came home from college (she attends practically year-round) to watch her brother graduate from high school. And to razz him about his friends, and his hair, and his clothes, despite the fact that she readily admits each and every article of his is on point.

In no small part, the result of his acquiescence to her guidance.

She loves him. She doesn’t want him to bear the burden of bad style if she can help it.  He loves her right back. So he lets her dress him up, unlike when they were kids. 

It was a quick week packed to the gills with activities: There were rehearsals, dinners, and other formalities that culminated in a strangely wonderful, if not rain-soaked, commencement. As we huddled together atop folding chairs and under two leaky umbrellas we had only brought, thankfully, because of a deeply held superstition that their mere presence in our possession would protect us from an uncertain deluge.

There was also a family gathering, bitter and sweet, that was happening simultaneously. We did that, too, no matter how groggy we would be from the road, we were up for that trip. ... And another trip to the train. Pick up. And to the airport. Drop off. It would go on like this until we head home again in the wee hours of the night.

The car is lively. The kids trade playing DJ with their Spotify lists as if it were the 80s and they had just assembled a most excellent mixtape … just for me. They converse about their lives and their plans for the summer. They sing along with the radio and razz each other during intermissions by belting out songs they once loved that have since lost their luster and esteem.  

I drink it in. I'm not sure how long this bubbly nectar will continue to flow. The banter is easy now, but one ill-timed statement could tank it. Sending us all into an uncomfortable silence and then into our own personal entertainment hubs, which will be silent only to me, the driver.

But that’s always the challenge, isn’t it? Conversation? So many loaded subjects that can dislodge the balance. 

I take care, especially while I’m driving, not to steer directly into any of them. Not even when my daughter reminded me to speed up, or pass this car, or watch out for that truck …

I smile and oblige. Listen more than talk. Keep my eyes and my mind on the road. 

The student becomes the professor.

When the ride is over, she exits the car. We help her gather her things and balance them on her still-small frame so she doesn’t topple over as she schleps them away. She stops for a hug. She is still small despite all the baggage she’s now dragging around.

It’s a group hug now, and it’s lasting too long. 

“Enough, Mom! I’ll be back in August.”