Firsts and Lasts by Sheri McComb

As mothers, when it comes to our children we usually focus on a lot of firsts: first tooth, first steps, first words, you get the picture. There’s even merchandise celebrating it: Christmas ornaments saying “Baby’s first Christmas” and things like that.  There are too many firsts to count and we try to remember each one by documenting with pictures and loving words scrawled in baby books. 

           At some point all those beginnings fade away as our children grow up. I am now focusing on the “lasts”. My “baby” is finished with most of her “firsts” and is getting ready to go off to college. I’m not sure when I transitioned from being obsessed with firsts to lasts. Probably on the day she graduated from high school. 

           My daughter Sara finished high school with a 4.0 GPA which earned her a partial scholarship to Michigan State University. My husband and I make a good living as Realtors, so we’re able to help her pay for tuition, and her job at the mall was helping her build up her bank account also. We were proud of her academic achievement and were happy that she’d be going to school just a half a day’s drive from our home. Right now, half a day seemed like an eternity. I sat and brooded about how far away she’d be soon and tried not to let her see me cry. My husband, Mitch told me I was being silly.

           “This is what we’ve raised her to do, Liv,” he kept saying. “We want her to be independent.” Men. They just don’t get it. 

           Of course, I want her to be independent. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss when she was little. It seems like it was just yesterday she was holding my hand and looking up at me in adoration. She used to tell me she’d never leave home because she loved me too much. When I think of those times, I get a pang in my heart, with a weight that seems to weigh a ton. 

           College starts in a week and Sara has been preparing with a passion I’ve rarely seen in her. She’s usually the one that puts things off until the last minute, but not this. She’s been making lists and crossing things off and seems a million miles away already. 

           I walked into her room this morning and she was taking things off the walls and putting them into piles. She barely looked up at me as I watched her.

           “What’s this?” I asked her. “Are you taking those with you?”

           She looked at me and snorted. “No, Mom. These are too childish for college. I’m going to throw most of them away. That pile is trash.” She pointed to the bigger of the two piles. “These I’m keeping. I’m going to put them in my closet.” I looked at the things in the “keep pile”. Michael Jackson, Ariana Grande, and a collage she’d made years ago with pictures of family and friends.

           “Are you taking anything with you for the walls in your dorm?” I asked her. I would have sat on her bed, but it was full of clothes, pillows, and her backpack. I picked up one of her pillows and held it to my chest. 

           “Mom, I’ve got it covered. I’ll get it set up my own way,” she said, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. “College kids don’t put up posters and stuff.”

           I didn’t answer, just watched her dismantling her childhood in front of my eyes. It hit me that this was the last time she’d be “living” under my roof instead of visiting from college. I squeezed the pillow harder.

           “Do you want me to help?” I asked. I looked around at her messy room. How was she going to get all this stuff packed away?

           “No, it’s fine. I know how I want to do it,” she said. “Do you think I could move into the dorm a few days early? I want to get settled before my roommate shows up.”

           “Early?” I asked, horrified. She was already leaving soon and now wanted to make it earlier? As hard as I tried a tear started to form in my eye and I wiped it away quickly, but not quick enough for her to miss it.

           “Mom, are you going to cry? Geez,” she said shaking her head. “I’m just going to college. I’ll come home to visit and we can text sometimes.” I had to smile thinking about when she went to summer camp and I was telling her the same things. What happened to my little girl who clung to me when I dropped her off? 

           “No,” I said putting the pillow down. “We can go whenever you want,” I told her, feeling like my heart was breaking. “I’m going to go make dinner.”

           When we sat down at the dinner table, Sara chattered on about all the things she was going to do when she got to school. It sounded like she had everything planned out. I thought about how I wouldn’t be making her dinner much longer. Soon it would just be Mitch and me and I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself.

           The next day brought me one day closer to saying good bye to my baby. We would be moving her into the dorm in a matter of days. I wanted to stop the clock and keep her home. Eighteen years was too short a time for us to be together. She obviously didn’t feel the same way. She was so excited and spent a lot of time texting her friends who were all going away to college too. None of them were going to MSU so she was looking forward to meeting new friends. 

           She came bouncing down the stairs. I asked her, “Hey, do you want to go shopping for any school stuff?” I was hoping to spend some time with her.

           “No thanks. I have everything I need.” She was texting someone. “I’m going to the mall with Jenny. I want to hang out with her before I leave for school.” She kissed my cheek and went out the door. I heard her car start and then she was off. 

           I felt bereft. I feel like she didn’t need me anymore. Why does she want to spend time with Jenny? Doesn’t she realize that our time together is winding down? Mitch walked in the room and saw my face. He shook his head and walked back out. I decided to go for a walk. Afterwards, I went up to Sara’s room. I looked at the bare walls and her suitcase. She was really going to leave us. 

           When Sara came home, she was full of smiles and had a couple of bags in her hand. She showed me some shirts she’d bought for school. I told her how pretty they would look on her while wishing I could have shopped with her. If I’d known the last time we’d gone shopping together would be the last one, I would have tried to mark it in my mind to remember. When was the last time I had read her a book? Tucked her in bed? Held her on my lap? How did all these “lasts” escape my awareness? It was like a time thief snuck in and out and you never knew what hit you. 

           The next day was Wednesday, and Thursday was the day Sara wanted to move into her dorm. This was my last day to have her here with me, where I could holler up the stairs and hear her answer, or hear her laughing in her room as she chatted with friends. When she got up, I approached her about how to spend this last day.

           “Do you want to do something today?” I asked hopefully. 

           She looked at me and I could tell she was torn. “Well, I was going to have lunch with Jenny and the group. We won’t see each other for a while.” I was thinking that she wouldn’t be seeing me for a while either, but I put on a brave front.

           “Oh, okay. What about after?” I asked.

           “Yeah, we could do something after. What do you want to do?” She was looking at her phone again. Why did we buy that for her again?

           “I don’t know. We can talk about it later,” I said, feeling like the pile of things she’d outgrown.

           I saw her friend Jenny pull up outside and Sara quickly kissed my cheek. “See you later,” she called running out the door. I watched her go thinking this would be the last time I saw her do that. Go running out the door to a friend. How many times had I heard the screen door slam as she ran in or out to play with friends? When was the very last time she had played with a neighborhood friend? I know there was one, but I couldn’t tell you when.

 I decided to look at some pictures. I got the albums out and sat on the floor with them all around me. I smiled as I went down memory lane watching Sara grow up in the pictures. There she was as an infant in the hospital. Then she was a toddler sitting on Santa’s knee. Her first haircut. The first time she lost a tooth and was afraid of the Tooth Fairy. I was so engrossed in the pictures I didn’t hear the front door open. 

           “What are you doing?” Sara said. She was standing there looking all grown up. “Can I look too?” Sara sat down next to me and together we looked at the pictures. I put my arm around her and breathed in the scent of her. We looked at those albums for an hour or more. 

           “Let’s go get ice cream!” I said to her, standing up. “Want to?”

           “Heck yeah,” she said grinning. I grabbed my keys and we headed off to Softy’s, the local ice cream stand. We sat on a bench outside the store eating our cones. I laughed as the chocolate melted and ran down our hands. After we finished and wiped our hands we got back in the car. 

           Before I started the car, I was thinking about this being the last time we’d do this for a long time. By the time Sara came home to visit, Softy’s would be closed up for the season. I decided to drive to the park. Sara didn’t object, just sat and let the breeze from the open windows blow her long blond hair. She was smiling and it was wonderful to see her happy. We got to the park and got out of the car. 

           “Let’s go down the old trail,” I suggested. She nodded and we set off down the trail that we’d walked many times when she was growing up.

           “We haven’t been here for, well how long has it been?” she asked. 

           I thought about it for a minute. “Gosh, I think the last time was when you were in 7^th grade and you wanted to tell me about a boy you liked.” Again, if I’d only known it was the last time. . . but technically it wasn’t since we were here now. We came upon the old merry-go-round and Sara ran and jumped on. She had a sparkle in her eye.

           “Come on, Mom! Get on and I’ll push.” I climbed on, grabbing onto the bars as Sara ran around pushing it faster. She jumped on and we both were laughing. She leaned her head back and looked up at the sky and for a moment I was transported back to when she was a little girl. My heart ached a little, but it was a happy feeling too.

           After we got off, we were both dizzy and giggled at how we could barely stand up straight. We walked over to a picnic table in the shade and sat down. We were silent a moment, then Sara spoke.

           “I’m kind of nervous about college,” she said. “What if it’s too hard?”

           “Oh, Honey you’ll be fine,” I said patting her hand. “You’re so brainy.” I chuckled. “You always think school’s going to be hard and then you breeze through.”

           “What if I don’t like my roommate? What if I don’t make any good friends?” she had always been a worrier, but it had been awhile since she’d sounded so unsure of herself.

           “Well, then you can come back home and I’ll be your roommate and friend. Problem solved.” We laughed, then I got serious. “Really, Honey, you will be okay. You’ll make friends, and I’m sure your roommate and you will get along just fine.”

           She hugged me and I felt the love flowing back and forth. THIS was something of which there would be no last time. 

           I looked at my watch. “We’d better get home or your dad will start dinner and we both know how that will end.” We laughed. Mitch was known to be a poor cook.

           Sara and I hooked elbows and walked back to the car. When we got home, she helped me make dinner and I couldn’t help but think that this would be the last time she’d do that for a long time. After dinner she asked me to sit down and make a list of things she needed to do before leaving for school, to make sure nothing was missed.

           “Sunscreen?” I asked. Sara wrote it down as a forgotten item. “Sunglasses? Driver’s license? Chargers?” As I named items, some she nodded, letting me know she had them and some she wrote down to remember. When I couldn’t think of anything else, she kissed me and said a quick “thanks, Mom” and ran upstairs to finish packing. Maybe she still needed me a little.

           The next morning came too quickly and Mitch was loading all of Sara’s things in the van. Before leaving, Sara ran upstairs saying she’d be back. When she didn’t return right away, I followed her upstairs to find her walking around her room, touching different items.

“What are you doing, Sweetie?” I asked her.

She looked at me. I could see tiny tears in her eyes. She sniffled a little and said, “Just saying goodbye to my room and stuff for the last time.” 

“Oh, Honey,” I said wrapping my arms around her. “It will look exactly the same every time you come home. This is your home and always will be.”

She hugged me back and we walked downstairs to where Mitch was waiting. He drove and I sat turned in the passenger seat, taking in the sight of my daughter, drinking in the eager look on her face and her bright smile. All too soon we were pulling onto the campus and driving up to her new home for the next four years. I felt like the world was ending and clutched the Kleenex I was hiding to mop up the inevitable tears.

           Mitch carried up her things and I stood in the doorway looking at the sparse furnishings. Sara was unpacking her items, including the rug I’d helped her pick out weeks before. She spread it on her side of the room and stood back. She nodded appreciatively, then looked up at me.

           “Thank you so much, Mom. You too Dad,” she added quickly. “You’ve made this so easy for me. Thank you both for being such good parents,” she said hugging us together and starting to cry. I found myself comforting her instead of crying myself. I stepped back and pushed a stray blond strand behind her ear.

           “This is the first day of your college career,” I said to her. “Imprint it in your memory, because you only get one first.”

           She smiled as the tears dried up. “I can’t wait to come visit,” she said. Mitch and I kissed her goodbye and he held my hand as we walked to the car. I looked back and Sara was waving and smiling. I knew then that everything would be alright. There would be no last time that she needed me until my last breath. As we pulled out of the campus heading for home, I was already planning what I would make her for dinner during her first visit.