Fanfare for another homecoming
by Cindy La Ferle

   When my son Nate first left home for college, I felt strangely out of place in my cleaner, quieter house. My early coping strategy included listing all of his holiday breaks on our kitchen calendar. I looked forward to being Mom again -- if only for a few days.
   Two weeks before Nate returned home for fall break of his freshman year, I channeled June Cleaver and planned a few family meals. I stocked up on Nate's favorite snacks. I reorganized my deadlines, freeing extra time to take him out for lunch. I retrieved the Halloween decorations earlier than usual, stringing rows of miniature pumpkin lights and autumn leaves across the mantel. My husband repaired the plaster damage from a roof leak in Nate's bedroom, and then repainted it.
   As soon as our son walked in the side door, the truth hit home: What the kid really needed was a low-key week. Stressed-out from exams, Nate wasn't expecting a Martha Stewart fanfare or nostalgic family dinners. He'd been looking forward to sleeping in and simply hanging out with family and friends. In my efforts to turn his visit into a special event, I'd forgotten that Nate didn't want to feel like a guest in his own home.
   Realizing my error, I backed off and let the week unfurl without a plan.
   In retrospect, the high points of that visit were the times we ran a few mundane errands together. Driving to the dry cleaner and the drugstore, Nate and I chatted about his new classes, his friends in the dorm, and which Guster album was the best. College was turning my snarky teenager into a thoughtful young man, and I found myself enjoying his company. At last, I felt ready to move on. It was time to celebrate a whole new phase of motherhood and midlife.
Savoring the moments?   More than wrinkles and gray hair, our kids never fail to remind us of our own aging.  Overnight, they morph from preschoolers in OshKosh overalls to college students in size 12 running shoes. Letting go also requires that we accept the fact that time isn't standing still for any of us. It's a sobering thought -- and ever more poignant when autumn rolls around.
   Last week, for instance, I watched the neighborhood teens pose for homecoming photographs in their formal-wear. Giddy with anticipation, the girls could barely stand still while a group of proud parents focused their cameras. The boys struggled to look comfortable in freshly pressed suits and ties. Their youthful beauty took my breath away, and my heart ached a little.
   It occurred to me then that my days of snapping photos of prom gowns and homecoming suits were over. And I wondered: Had I fully experienced those moments as they unfolded? Or had I merely captured them on film to savor later?  How often had I darted mindlessly from one precious "occasion" to the next? As cliched as it sounds, that's when I fully realized that none of us will be given a chance to replay the past. Or, as Carly Simon sang it, "These are the good old days."
   It's a worthy thought to ponder before the onset of the winter holidays -- before we get tangled up in Christmas lists and decorating marathons and long lines at the malls.
   In anticipation of Thanksgiving, I'm composing a little prayer of gratitude for the mundane and the uneventful.  I'm counting my commonplace blessings: the bowl of McIntosh apples on the kitchen counter; the mischievous cat chasing the pens on my desk; a lazy morning with the Sunday paper; the hearty bean soup simmering in the slow cooker.
   This season I'll practice coming home to the present moment, to the grace of ordinary days opening one at a time, like the paper windows on my Advent calendar.
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Cindy La Ferle writes on home, family, and women's issues from Royal Oak, where she is Writer-in-Residence for her public library. Writing Home, her award-winning collection of stories on motherhood and women's issues, is distributed nationally to bookstores by Wayne State University Press. Visit Cindy La Ferle's Home Office and Blog: www.laferle.com  You may also contact her directly at cindy@laferle.com