Home Again

                                  

 It wasn't that long ago that I sat at my computer to write a very sappy blog post about my baby girl going off to college. It was one of the hardest things I've ever tried to write -- not because I couldn't find the right words, but because I could not see very well with the tears pouring down my face and the blubber blocking up my sinuses. 

I get like that sometimes.

At the time, I poured my heart out about how proud I was, but also how sad that my baby girl was leaving me to go off and become her own person, to become even more independent than she already was and pretty much always has been. I marveled at how quickly the time had passed from that moment her first mother placed her in my empty arms to then. How hard it was to let her go.

It was so full of emotions that even she was moved to a tear. (Just one. My girl does not cry like her mama.)

But almost just as quickly, four years flew by and my baby girl is home -- sort of.

Just a few short weeks ago, she donned a purple gown and mortar board, moved her tassel from one side to the other, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, with a Bachelor's degree in Communications. She was on the Dean's List all four years (or the President's List) and was the editor of her school newspaper, The Current Sauce.  Best of all, in four years I never got a call from campus security or a local sheriff's deputy and we made it through with no major traumas, dramas, illnesses or catastrophes. 

Whew! 

I may have been up in the rafters on graduation day, but I could still see her proud smile as she walked across the stage to receive her diploma. I did not cheer. I did not hoot or holler. I did not even caw. I just watched and cried and recorded it so I could watch it again... and again. And so could she. 

And she did not have to see me to know that I was bursting with pride and crying -- again.

Shortly after the ceremony (and the monsoon that hit during it), we posed for a slew of family photos to mark the occasion. We then drove back to her dorm to pack it up and move her out one last time. I got to play car Tetris once more (I am the Master!), stowing her belongings in my car, hers and her boyfriend's. Before we hit the road, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at her favorite spot in Natty -- a little gas station cafe called The French Market. Then we all settled in for the very long drive home.

But this time, she didn't bring all her stuff back to my house to sort through. No, this time it all went to her boyfriend's place just up the street! (Score one for Mom!) Her now tidy bedroom is still tidy! The only thing she gave me was the cap and gown to store safely in one of her many boxes and trunks of keepsakes. 

And I was fine with all of it. After four years, I'm just happy to have her less than four hours away. She is literally one mile away now, in a tidy little trailer she is working hard to decorate and keep clean. We've gone there to see where she put all her stuff and to visit with our grand cat, Flea, and dog, Buddy. She's come home to raid the fridge and the pantry and to swim. It's nice.

So now she begins her post-graduate degree in adulting. She's looking for a job (she's a damn good writer), filling out applications, taking care of their pets, figuring out how to pay the bills, and calling for advice here and there. 

These four years have taught both of us a lot about independence. She has been on her own and survived. And so did I.

So, now that she is home again, I have not become a helicopter mom, opting to let her do it her way. I'm here if she needs me, and if I do happen to spot an interesting job opening on Twitter or Facebook, I do send it her way. The rest is up to her.

A lot of my co-workers and Facebook pals are now where I was four years ago, crying over their soon to be empty nests and lamenting how hard it will be to drive their child miles away and drop them in their new temporary homes. I feel for them. My heart aches for them. But at least now I can tell, them -- they do come home again. Well, sort of. She may not be back in her childhood bedroom, which she never cleaned, but at least she's in the same zip code. 

Graduation Day

Just about six months ago, I got a chance to go home.

No, not to my hometown of Houma -- although, I go there all the time. Thanks to an opportunity, a former co-worker at the former daily paper, a nice recommendation from her and a spiffed up resume, I got to go home to Loyola University New Orleans.

I spent seven of the best years of my life at this beautiful, cozy, Uptown campus, beginning in 1980, when I joined a bunch of crazy women from Florida and St. Louis, Missouri, on the fourth floor at Buddig Hall.

I spent the last few months living in the Cabra Hall Dormitory on the Broadway campus, just steps from where I am now working as a part time/temporary writing assistant in the Office of Public Affairs. It's a nice gig with some nice people in a nice, very quiet office in the ancient Greenville Hall, which once was part of the St. Mary's Dominican campus. I have my own little cubicle I like to call, "The Grotto."

I won't get into all the reasons why it took me so long to complete my Loyola education. Let's just blame it on New Orleans, Mardi Gras, an off-campus apartment, my lack of maturity, indecision, (the now defunct) Phi Phi Phi sorority, the Oil Bust of the 80s and lots and lots of beer. Mostly the beer.

But I did eventually finish. I did get a bachelor's degree in English with a minor in Religion and another in Secondary Education. But I didn't graduate.

I didn't get to put on the pretty crimson cap and gown and traipse across a stage to get my diploma (or at least the cover). Instead, I left the Times-Picayune sports department on my lunch hour and went to Loyola to pay my final bill. The nice lady in the finance department handed me a receipt and told me to go to the Registrar's Office. There, another nice lady handed me my diploma.

Just like that.

No cap. No gown. No "Pomp and Circumstance." No applause. Not even a cake.

I had my reasons. My family was just too quirky at the time, and didn't always play nice. My high school graduation so many years earlier had been a blended family fiasco. While I sat on the Terrebonne High School football field sweating in the May heat, it broke my heart to see one part of my clan seated to my left and my dad seated to my right. They couldn't get together for just one night. for me. I didn't even want to attempt to let them try again.

Plus, I was, quite frankly, a little embarrassed that it had taken me so long to finish. I dropped a lot of classes. I skipped a lot more. My transcripts are about 10 pages long. By the time I finished my last class in the summer of 1987, I was 25 years old and already working at The Times-Picayune  sports department. I even spent part of my final semester living in the dorm at Cabra Hall with eight or so 19- and 20-year-olds. It was a little unsettling.  And even though I was the first of our family to get a college degree, I was a joke. I still get teased about it -- or I did until my stepson beat my record.

So now I'm working in the Public Affairs Office with this woman, this Cracker Jack woman, named Angela. And she is the person who puts together Loyola's graduation ceremony. I mean she really puts it together. Then she directs it.

For the last several months I have heard this woman plan the annual Commencement ceremony down to the most minute detail -- from who is carrying what to who is saying what to who is ushering whom to where. It truly has been amazing to listen to her on the phone. The other day the office table was covered with "Just in Case" stuff -- markers, pens, pencils, Post-its, a first aid kit. You name it, she has thought of it.

I don't know if the 1987 Commencement Ceremony was so meticulously planned. I going to guess it was not because Angela wasn't in charge then. If she had been, it would have been for sure.  And it makes me rather sad that I'll never know. She makes me wish I had walked that stage.

When I became a step mom to Daniel and Courtney, one of the things I wanted to make sure of was that none of their events would be spoiled by their parents because of me. And their parents agreed.  Cheryl and I both are kids of divorce. We each grew up with our own stories. And it's part of the reason we all made it a priority to play nice. I've always told the kids, if they ever want Mom and Dad on the front row and me on the second, just say the word. They never have.

And we don't elbow each other out of the way. We save each other seats. That's what families are supposed to do. Especially on days like this.

Y'all KNOW I would have wrtten "LOLO" on my cap, right?

Lagniappe: Here's one for all my fellow New Orleans area graduates (whether on stage or not). It's a N'awlins tradition! And it makes us all cry.   ---------->   Graduation Day    

Missed

We didn't save you a seat.

And we didn't have to wait for you to rush in at the last minute because you couldn't get away from work on time, or because you left the bouquet of roses in the fridge and had to rush back home to get them.

That was at the last graduation ceremony, for your first daughter.

You weren't there being entertained by your grandchildren -- four of them now, each one cuter than the other.

You weren't there to snort with me over the outrageous dresses the girls  are wearing these days, or the shoes, or the guys who showed up wearing shorts and a t-shirt. (Really people?)


You weren't there to cheer with us when she marched into the arena, her head held high under her gold mortar board to the strains of "Pomp and Circumstance."

You weren't there to hoot and holler and scream her name at the top of your lungs, even though they asked us so many times not to and reminded us several times about the dignity of this occasion. (They obviously forgot to tell the guys wearing the shorts and the t-shirt, however.)

You weren't there to wave to her as she took her seat and searched us out way up high in the stands.

You weren't there to hear her name as she walked across the stage to receive her high school diploma.

You weren't there to give her a big bouquet of roses and hugs and kisses and tell her how proud you were that she made it through high school.

You weren't there to see her smiles.

And that broke our hearts.

You should have been there. And but for one rainy night, one dark and lonely road, and one unbuckled seat belt, you might have been. If God could give us a do-over, we might have been a complete family on this night, not a mother without a son, a wife without a husband, a daughter without a father, a sister without her big brother.

 So we did it for you. Screamed, hollered, cheered, clapped and called out her name. And showered her with roses. Because we know you would have.  And because we wished you were there.

But you missed it. And you were missed.