When Aurelle left for the airport, I asked if she would send a text when she boards safely, and then when she lands. It is not my desire to be another task on her list, which for international travel is lengthy. It is just such a luxury to have word that she is safe. She apologized for not getting her storage boxes to the basement. I waved it off. Carrying the weight of her favorite books and summer clothes down three flights of stairs will be a relief. I remember expressing regret that my children had left fingerprints on an elderly woman's glass door many years ago. She smiled.

 

"I will leave them there a while. To remind me."

 

As I sit in the sadness left behind, I feel the excitement for her in my peripheral vision. This is her final year at college, and she will thrive. There is no pandemic to throw a monkey wrench in the class schedule, and she is more capable than ever to navigate the demands of higher education in Europe. There are currently floods in Madrid, which raises the stakes somewhat. So my anxiety at least has something new to obsess about. 

 

Goodbyes are ubiquitous in the human experience, whether it involves a job change, or relocation, or death. Some transitions are less generous about the updates than those that will hopefully appear on my phone around dinner time and tomorrow afternoon. 

 

When I left for my junior year of college in Iowa, my mother was teary. That baffled me then. Not now, I assure you. Certainly there were no texts, no calls, and probably no letters to comfort her in the weeks while I settled into a new dorm room. Maybe there was a pay phone down the hall, and a mailbox at the student union. Mostly I forgot about what my mother might be experiencing. 

 

What astounds me is that my Heavenly Parent is calm. Even with more children to keep track of than I have, there is confidence. Omniscience brings with it the clarity of knowing how this plays out.