Two of our daughters are leaving soon. The enticements of the summer, with eating salad on the deck, and popcorn during a movie are coming to a close. Our family was all together for a sweet blink of time last month, and the five daughters stayed up late laughing in the hot tub.

Hope flies to France to embark on grad school, at the same university that recently awarded her a diploma. Aurelle leaves the next week, bound for Spain, to resume her program at Universidad Carlos lll de Madrid. I saw it coming, of course, and even as I savored our conversations I knew it would not last. The first summer was not that way. I fooled myself into believing that the months would stretch luxuriously, and I wouldn't cry. But I do learn eventually, and this old dog has mastered the trick of farewell. 

I am not alone. Many mothers are also squeezing their children even as they shove fifty dollars in their pockets and remind them to call. Even if most of us managed to forget that the active portion of parenting comes to a close, the inevitability of separation arrives like a credit card bill. 

I listened to a woman whose husband has died. The separation for her is more permanent than the one I face. She shrugged her shoulders.

"I wasn't ready."

Is it possible to be ready? 

It occurs to me that God is always ready. Or at least He is never caught off guard. He does not distract Himself from the inevitable losses of college in another country, or divorce, or death. 

It behooves me to be like that. Not in a gloomy, Eeyore kind of way, but in respect for the cycles of this life that entail grief. Feeling this way is the other side of the coin that means we love someone.