Empty Nest

I admit that having an empty nest is not something I have looked forward to. I never really gave the thought much time. It was always so far away, it seemed. Until the morning of Katrina’s wedding when it hit me in the face suddenly; as if, in all the scurry of wedding planning, I had not given serious consideration to after the wedding. After the wedding for Katrina and Kyle was our focus: honeymoon plans, moving to Utah, military life, her role in the marriage and so on. All of that was covered and talked about. I was excited for them about their future. Much of ones life, in a way, is preparation for our future: character building, schooling, skills development and much else. She had been well prepared. But had I?

I had done a good job at pushing those thoughts out of my thinking those past few months. It was not as though I was in denial. One day Katrina even approached me, “Mom, everyone keeps asking me about what you are going to do when I am gone. I feel guilty and don’t want to leave you here with Grandma.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes. I hugged her and without hesitation assured her, “Katrina, it is true, I will miss you. But I am excited for your future. Seeing you live out your dreams and pursue your happiness is a part of my dreams. I would never ever want you to stay here or even worry about me. Suppose my mother didn’t let me go? I will be fine, Sweetheart. Be happy.”

I had not allowed my brain to visit that thought again since that conversation with Katrina in the kitchen. That is, until the morning of her wedding as I stood over the stove preparing breakfast while I listened to her moving about the house. Finally she was next to me at the stove and my heart knew that this was the last morning I would have my baby living in my home. I could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks but didn’t want to disturb Katrina. She had much to celebrate. I thought about how the next few hours were going to escape from all of us and she would be walking down the isle soon and would become a wife with her own home and family. But,I knew she would still be my baby- my girl. I felt gratitude for having two wonderful daughters such as mine. A tear must have dropped because Katrina suddenly asked, “Are you crying?” I assured her that the only problem was that wonderful daughters are hard to let go.

Although it has been ten days since the wedding, it was not until last night that Jeff and I really felt the empty nest syndrome. We have had houseguests and several fun overnighters with Kiara (while Matt was on a short hunting trip.) The delay was certainly sparing our minds and home of dealing with the issue. But the empty nest was not so empty last night since Susan certainly did her part to keep us occupied and entertained. Boring- it was not.
It started when she appeared in the hall with her keys in hand ready to leave to go to her own home. My once stylish mother-in-law was in one of her latest fashions, the kind I affectionately call “Alzheimer’s clothes.” That is what made me scurry for my camera in the first place, not knowing that I would be snapping away for the next hour. She was headed out to her car to drive herself home. I let her go; it seems that nothing I can say is as affective as her seeing for herself that she has no car in the driveway. I snapped some cute pictures of her sporting her white long johns,
new black and cream wedding shoes with her groovy red purse. And she was off!

Looking back, I should have figured that her mission wouldn’t simply end at my driveway. Upon not finding her car there, she remembered that she had actually parked it just down the street. So, with keys in hand she walked with a mission toward the parked car. Step by step she got smaller and further away; all the while the sun kept creeping down in the sky behind her. When she finally turned onto that same gravel road she had traveled the time she ran away, I attempted an intervention. With my camera still slung over my shoulder I hurried toward my mother-in-law-with-a-mission. I was on a mission too; it was to bring her safely home. For the next fifteen minutes my camera and I followed her as we tried to convince her that she needed to turn around and head back to the house. Nothing worked. Not the fact that the further she walked away, the further she would have to walk back. She didn’t care- she was driving back! Nor the fact that her brand-new shoes were being torn up by the gravel she was now stumbling
over. “Well, why would I buy them if I can’t wear them?” she argued. Silly me.

The closer she thought she was to that car (no cars in sight) the more she argued and fought. Eventually she was getting tired, causing her wedged shoes to wobble as she walked. She looked like an alcohol loaded senior citizen with a quirky sense of fashion. Even the horses she passed turned to take a second look. Gun shots rang out from a nearby farmhouse. “Better watch out Susan, you may get shot. We might be trespassing,” I warned, desperate. She didn’t care. She would fight for her car and her freedom to drive it- home!


To Susan’s delight and my dismay, we eventually came upon two neighbor men welding a fence. We must have looked like an odd pair of precarious women totally out of place on this country road. Their attempt to 'not look' too hard only reinforced the fact that we surely appeared to have gotten lost from our wild party and certainly must have been perceived as being up to no good as I whispered in her ear and she slapped me away. Imagine my pleadings in her ear as she turned toward the Fence Menders yelling unafraid, “Excuse me! Excuse me! Could you please take me to my car? It’s not far; it’s parked right over there!” She pointed toward one of their driveways (where I am sure they knew no strangers’ cars were parked.)

There is no way to effectively ignore two crazy ladies who approach you in the middle of a country road, but I assure you that these two kind men made their best attempt. Be sure, they kept us in their peripheral vision all the while. But Susan's aggression did not stop. She continued pleading her case as she propped her weary body against one of their trucks. I stepped between her and them; facing the man I was most familiar with, I asked him if he remember that my mother-in-law has Alzheimer’s. He remembered. (How could he forget after witnessing her runaway escapade last May?) I apologized for us both and tried to physically make Susan head home with me. She yanked her arm away and hit me some more as she kept calling over my shoulder to her hopeful rescuers. It appeared that I was a kidnapper and they were her only hope of salvaltion.

They did not rescue her, but my rescuer finally came. Imagine my relief when I saw my suburban turning the corner of the gravel road- the one that Susan had chosen as her escape route. Seems these men were even playing along now;I heard one of them say, “Here comes Jeff now!" and then, “Here comes a car that can take you!” Further imagine my relief as I buckled her into the car before we drove back to our empty nest on the hill. Well, almost empty