August 23rd, 2024
By Bonnie Tarantino
When our eldest daughter left for College Park at University of Maryland, we packed up the car, left her two younger siblings at home, drove 45 minutes, pulled up to a busy curb and unloaded her stuff into three huge laundry-type rolling bins. A few upperclassmen joined in, helping to direct and manage the awkward things, all making her feel welcomed and supported. We met her roommate, organized her room, had a quick lunch and walked her back to her dorm. Our goodbye was held in front of her dorm. A long hard hug with some tears but relatively fast. “Rip off the band aid” my husband said to me, feeling as if he’d felt enough for one day. We turned and walked a few steps away, then paused to turn and get one more look at our strong, direct, and fun-seeking eldest. In keeping with her independent personality, we saw only the closed double doors to her dorm. She was gone. She didn’t look back. With two at home, I got right back to mothering.
Our son, just three years younger was recruited to play baseball at Johns Hopkins. Following in his father’s footsteps and coached even by the same coach as my husband, we knew we would be a part of his college experience. On the day of his move, we drove the 20 minutes down to his dorm, unloaded far less stuff and didn’t even go to lunch. He had things to do. I reminded him I would drop off a ziti when he was ready. He said, “No, no zitis.” I said, “No, no.. I’ll just drive by and hand it out the window.” He said, “Mom, NO!” I let it go. We would see him often….fall ball would begin soon. (I knew he would get hungry eventually and he did. My ziti became famous.) To replace him I convinced my husband I needed our first family dog, a Bernadoodle we named Walter. To cope on his end, my husband with the free time he once used to coach our son, took his coaching hat off and took up golf. I returned home to my daughter, six years younger than her brother, and got right back to mothering.
It was a huge shift going from three to one, but we adjusted. Then Covid hit and all at once everyone was home. With N-92 masks and gloves, I slipped out to forage for food. Our dinners were elaborate, flowing with wine, board games and talk of which movie we would dig up from the 80’s. My unexpected casting of a second maternal role was like a Broadway revival, and I slipped back into my part easily. Under my intense concern for our lives and health, I knew it was a gift of sorts. I slept deeply for two months knowing my kids were all tucked into their beds again. Walter the dog, like Goldilocks, took turns visiting everyone’s bed.
This past weekend at Duke was an entirely different story. We packed up the car tight with the clever storage bins I had saved from the older siblings and drove the six hours that is supposed to be five and never is because of I-95. Instead of a quick drop-off, we checked into the Washington Duke Inn a night early and relished delicious steaks in downtown Durham. The next morning, we rose early and pulled up on the long line to unload. When it was our turn, we were greeted with lively music and a pack of upperclassman chanting “Pop that trunk! Pop that trunk!!” I got out and grabbed two pillows and held tight. Someone said, “No mamma, we will carry everything up. We’ve got her.” But I would not let go. I clung tight to those pillows up the one flight of stairs to her bright corner room where they moved her in with one fast efficient trip.
Instead of saying goodbye right there we had the day together. We made the rookie mistake of going to Target in a college town on move-in day. They had nothing we needed. For dinner, a lovely reception was held in big white tents at the foot of the chapel and sprawling quad. Live classical music pumped out of manicured gardens with splashes and swags of white and bold blue everywhere. Baskets of fresh organic peaches, grapes and blueberries hinted that dietary needs and the earth had been considered. Slowly we noticed that the blue color was building. The students one by one were picking up their personalized sports jerseys with the last names and number 28 on the back. Gradually we began to make our way over to Cameron Indoor Stadium. The blue kept building. Soon, there seemed to be two streams of energy. I could feel my daughter being pulled. Tributaries from all over the world finally began to flow into each other. It was clear who were the students and who were the families. We were told through emails and signs, “You will say goodbye at the front doors to the stadium. Once they enter you will not be able to say goodbye again.”
We stood in a pack outside the stadium hearing in the distance the cheering as kids let go and finally gave in to this great pull. We said our hardest goodbye yet and watched as our daughter was cheered with balloons and pom poms through the door, finally joining the invisible current that had been pulling her here since perhaps the day she was born. She turned back and waved.
I was a mess behind my cool sunglasses. My hair frizzed out beyond comprehension matching my grasping radar in thick humidity…where was she now? My husband guided me up the steps and into the upper levels of the arena. We found a seat. The guy next to me had sweat his tears instead of cried them. His deodorant could not hold. There below us the blue wave of students filtered in making a ring on the first tier circling the famous basketball court. Realizing he was on sacred ground for anyone who knows anything about sports, my husband started texting his friends where he was out of respect. I kept my eyes on the floor below me. Where was my girl? Where was my Maya?
I found her and she was looking for me too! My phone buzzed. “Ma!” I soaked up the word knowing I would have to adjust to hearing it only a few times a week, if I was lucky. I was up out of my seat, kind of jumping and waving. “Oh, I see you! How cool is this?!” she yelled. I choked out an “It’s amazing…amazing!”
It took a while for the kids to finish pouring in, but I kept my eye on her. Soon she became harder to find. Upperclassmen were teaching the dorm groups how to cheer. First the groups were quiet and tentative, then louder and more confident and synched. Soon in one big booming voice they were brought deeper into the fold. The stadium wrapped itself around them as it has since 1940. The lights dimmed; President Price walked onto the court. He began what we all needed. A ritual. A way to say thank you to each other, a way to say how proud we were, a way to say we love you, a way for Duke to say, “We’ve got her.” He showed us the powerful threshold we all stood upon. He would keep them safe here and this is how we say goodbye.
At one point Mary Pat McMahon, VP of student affairs, got up to speak and said, “We want you to be messy here.” Meaning you have said “no” to so many easy ways out and “yes” to so many hard things. You have worked so hard. Now you get to relax a little and find out who you really are and what you really want to do and be. Basically, your brilliance has only just begun but now you have each other to inspire, no need to compete anymore. Let’s see who you really are.
And I realized that that was the point of the commencement…it was for me as well. In setting up a space for us to say a formal messy goodbye, they were taking us through our own tributary of feelings. By pooling us up high and thanking us, they were showing us that we will always have an eye on them. By giving us time to behold and really feel the achievement of their arrival here on the floor of greatness and grit, we could see what we fostered. By giving us time to really feel it all, not just the goodbye but the journey here, it gave us time to process. When you feel your feelings in a collective way, it is so safe to allow for them to move. I knew sitting there that I would not be getting back to mothering as I knew it, but the mother in me was being mothered by this ceremony. The part of me who is ready to grow and learn and follow my own current back to my own bigger stream was given permission. At one point another VP Candis Watts asked a considerate, “Who here is sending their last child off to college?” I raised my hand feeling my heart rise into my throat. My husband’s hand went up as well. We looked around us. We were not alone. We were in new place but something greater was pulling us as well. Our girl was beyond safe. She was in a sea of incredible people who had what she needed. The lights dimmed again. We had all learned the cheer then watched as the freshman of the class of 2028 marched out. I kept my eye on my daughter, and right before I lost her, she turned back, held up her hand high and waved goodbye. In a sea of blue, she shined bright. She was ready, turned easily away and crossed a sacred and invisible blue tinted threshold into her new world.
