The hardest loss was sending our son off to college during a pandemic

The digital photo frame flashed snapshots of the children growing up at all ages on the kitchen counter. For years we enjoyed remembering the various moments of the kids childhoods. The vacations to Disney World, trips to see the grandparents in Florida, and school events were always flashing, predictably reminding us of good times. The final morning to take our son to the airport for college felt like many of the other travel mornings. Two large duffel bags were carefully packed the night before. My husband and son had bickered over which suitcases to use and exactly how they would fit everything in like a puzzle. He wasn’t going to be able to bring much because he was flying to Toronto, as an international student during a Pandemic.

After a long and boring summer filled with the ups and downs that all graduating seniors had experienced, our son was feeling trepidatious about traveling to Canada and having to shelter alone in a hotel room for a two-week quarantine. Not exactly the college start an eighteen year old dreamed about. He didn’t want to stay back home with us but he had valid concerns about what to anticipate socially. Only one third of the students would be housed and they would be alone in their dorm rooms studying online in a virtual classroom. His start to what was supposed to be a fun new life sounded horrible to me, his adult mother. I did what every mother did and painted a brave attitude about how he would surely have a great experience and bond with other students, living to one day tell his unique pandemic start to college.

The day before I was so busy making sure he had what he needed, that it was only in the late afternoon when the Amazon truck pulled up with his last minute underwear, that the grief finally hit me. He was going away to college and we wouldn’t be able to visit him nor could he come home over any holiday due to the two-week imposed Canadian quarantine. He would be gone in less than 24 hours and I wouldn’t see him in person again until May. This process was unkind and abrupt, brutally awakening my own teenage feelings of abandonment when my parents were going through a divorce my senior year of high school.

The last morning was not hurried. Everything was ready and packed from the night before and the plane was not leaving until 1:00pm. There was time to have a coffee with him and give him his favorite red cup. Time to casually chat about the growth of his pepper plant on the deck…

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