A Father's Empty Nest: The Dictionary of Letting Go

My youngest child has left for college.

That stark truth continues to reverberate. For more than two decades I've lived at the hub of a rollicking adventure, a world centered around children in a one-size-does-not-fit-all, vibrant, at times zany, loving family. Having children has shaped me, is an essential part of who I am. Now, with Jonah gone, I am facing a mountain of feelings as emptiness and possibility vie for my attention.

For years I loved the ritual of school mornings--rousing Jonah and his siblings on those days they were slow to get up. I continued to make brown bag lunches for him all through high school--not because he couldn't make his own (he sometimes did), but because making them brought me pleasure; it was a small but significant part of my definition of fatherhood.

Shouldn't I have been more prepared for this moment? After all, three older sisters preceded Jonah out the door. But he is the youngest and we are the only males in our household. The father-sonness of the situation has only accentuated my feelings, a mixture of loss and excitement I know we're both experiencing--even if I'm feeling more loss and he more excitement. In my head I know the emphasis will change, but right now it's my heart I'm contending with.

For many men, fatherhood is the key portal into self-examination, an exploration of who we are and what we believe. Fatherhood raises the stakes around personal responsibility and accountability. It motivated me to begin examining my shortcomings in ways other passages have only hinted at. Along the way, I made mistakes. I wish I could go back and correct those moments when I let Jonah--and myself--down. I wish now that I had shared some parts of myself with him sooner and gone deeper. I know I acted overprotectively at times, mistrusting his process of maturation.

But the discomfort accompanying these reflections isn't all bad. We have a lot of years before us as Jonah grows more into manhood and I grow older standing beside him. Brushing up against this tug of loss is also a feeling of possibility: of what's next for me as space opens up in my life, space I haven't felt for a long time.

On college move-in day, I carry load after load of Jonah's gear up three flights of stairs (asking myself why none of my children ever got first-floor dorm rooms). I am sweaty, heart pumping, feeling alive and useful. With his permission, I put Jonah's clothes away in the dresser and closet, a comforting, familiar act. But even as my hands, out of years of habit, effortlessly fold and arrange T-shirts and socks, I feel a queasiness from my heart up to my throat. My eyes tear up. Sad? Sure. Scared? You bet. Proud? That, too.

It would have been quintessentially male to have tried to ignore the feeling of freefall I was experiencing, to not pay attention to wondering what Jonah's and my relationship would be like now. The old familiar part of my life as a father wanted things to remain as they once had been--finding a hook to hang his clock, a place for the laundry basket. But I know that cannot be and my heart aches. The rituals of father and son we long enjoyed--from playing catch to making pizza--are not gone forever, but they'll never be the same. I mourn that loss as I marvel at the young man before me, half a head taller than me, the dark stubble on his chin as clearly noticeable as the new confidence in his stride.

I love my son in a way that says something to me about manhood I haven't ever tried to explain before. It's a gritty and tender love, a mix of feelings I've been experiencing with Jonah his whole life: gentleness and fierceness; humor and quiet; understanding and distance. Driving home later, I see through the tears that inexplicably feel so good running down my cheeks what a gift Jonah has given me. In bringing my last child to college I've picked up a few new words in the father-son dictionary of letting go, one we've been learning from for 18 years. Under "empty nest" the citation now reads "fullness of heart."

Rob Okun is executive director of the Men's Resource Center for Change and editor of Voice Male magazine. He can be reached by clicking here.