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TRANSITION
Off to College Ready or Not
The bittersweet process of leaving and letting go
Anyone who saw the 1983 movie National Lampoon’s Vacation starring Chevy Chase knows who the Griswolds are. A family of goofs or nerds, if you will. In our family when we did something goofy or nerdy, we would call ourselves the Griswold’s, and that’s just what our teenage kids called us during the summer of 1992.
Our son, a freshman, and our daughter, a returning sophomore were off to college. My husband and I were just their chauffeurs. We rented a large U-Haul van to take them and all their stuff, to Indiana University in Bloomington, then to the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
To their complete humiliation, we put signs all over that van announcing IU or bust, and Badgers, Here We Come, sporting their school colors, both red and white. Although they protested, we took the obligatory family photos in front of the decked-out van to mark this momentous occasion.
After our amateur photo shoot, the kids drove off together to run last-minute errands. I went to the Hallmark store to search for the perfect Good Luck cards to sneak into their suitcases. I ended up searching for something much different and far more valuable.
While I was looking at the cards, I happened to glance down at my wedding ring.
Oh my God, my diamond is gone. After searching for over an hour, I gave up, but I held out hope that it would eventually be found.
Somehow, it seemed symbolic. I lost the beautiful diamond Jim had given to me on bended knee in 1971 when we were young college students, just as our kids were becoming young college students themselves in 1992.
With the despair I felt about losing my diamond, tangled up with the sweet memory of our engagement along with the sad realization that we were soon-to-be empty-nesters, I was an emotional mess.
However, I somehow managed to drive home, cards in tow, minus one diamond, to finish packing the van so we could set off on our trip to College Town USA.
The kids were excited, but Jim and I were exhausted, physically and emotionally.
