College is HARD!

I knew dropping my oldest son, Austin, off at college was going to be hard. After all, he picked a college 21 hours away from home! But goodness, I didn't think it would be *this* hard... and I certainly didn't count on all the other "hard" moments that are coming along with it.

I was perfectly fine with him leaving for college...even looking forward to having a clean kitchen for once... until that final week arrived. I found myself crying that last Sunday as I entered his bedroom to wake him for church service that one final time... crying again on Monday in one of the grocery store aisles of all places as I stocked the cart with cans of spaghetti-o's and tuna fish one final time... Holding back the tears and swallowing over a huge lump in my throat as I sat on his bed with him that last morning folding all of his clothes together and carefully placing them into his large suitcase. And then the tears threatened to spill over again on that last Wednesday evening at home as he hugged each of his brothers one last time (ok, so it was the ONLY time...) and then walked out the door of his home to make that long car trip out to the college campus.

Registration day was Friday. We planned on staying through the weekend to get him settled, and we would head home Sunday morning. That was our plan anyways. However, come Saturday morning, I had to make a very hard decision - leave a day earlier than planned. I observed that Austin was wanting to hang with us instead of bonding with his friends and roommates, so I knew it would be for the best if we made our exit early even though it was so hard to lose that extra day with him on campus. I will never forget the look on his face when we told him during breakfast on Saturday that we were leaving that morning instead of on Sunday as originally planned. Sigh, such a hard decision, but it was the right one.

Then last night.... an unexpected phone call from Austin. He NEVER calls home unless he wants something. "Oh please," I found myself silently pleading, " please don't ask to come home." He was feeling lonely, and he was bored sitting in his dorm room that Friday evening. Even though he is too proud to admit he's homesick, I could hear it in his voice. He needed a connection of some sort with home... with his family. He didn't really have much to say other than there was nothing going on Friday night and all day Saturday, and he didn't know what to do with his time. I encouraged him in my motherly way to ask around his dorm floor and find out what others were doing over the weekend.... to ask questions of those upperclassmen who knew the campus what there was to do for recreation... to come out of his shell... to reach out and make friends. And then I made that hard decision once again... to end the phone call and force him to solve the problem on his own.

Love is hard. A parent needs great strength at times. Watching and sometimes having to force your child to grow up is so very difficult. My heart is being tugged and squeezed with each hard step in this new phase of life. I find myself AMAZED at the strength of my own mother as I think back to the grief I must have caused her in my own college days. Calling collect and sobbing into the phone, begging and pleading for her to allow me to come back home. I eventually wore her down. About 3 months before my graduation, with a great sigh, she finally breathed the words I had longed to hear, "Alright, I will get you a plane ticket. You can come home." However, I took my very first step in maturity that evening. I decided on my own that I would not quit. I would see this through and stick it out for three more months, and I did. I am now proud of myself for making that decision. It was so HARD, but I am thankful I had it in me to see it through to the end, and I could hold my head up high with that diploma knowing I had perservered during hard times and didn't give up.

So when those dreaded words come from my own son's lips, "I want to come home," I can share my own life experience with him. And hopefully, it will help. Not only him, but me too... as once again, I need to learn that lesson of perserverance through hard college days. I'm just on the other end of it now.