by Elizabeth Holmberg

Created on: January 02, 2010

When your children leave home to college or to jobs, many mothers and even fathers begin an emotional roller coaster they never once saw coming.  They didn’t see it coming throughout the endless days they had to stay home with a fussy baby, they didn’t see it in the constant soccer or baseball practices, science fair projects, parent teacher conferences, plays, and endless activities. And then one day, the children are gone.  

It is then that, for some, the emotional trauma, can seem overwhelming.

Mothers may think they should have had more children.  Fathers think they should not have worked so many long hours.  Mothers think they no longer have any other purpose other than wearing red hats and strolling through knick-knack shops.  Fathers feel a sense of emptiness they may not verbalize.  

Friends repeatedly ask, with concern, “How are you doing, now that (fill in the blank) is away at (fill in the blank)?  And worst yet, they say....those two terrible words:  empty nester.  

Empty nester.  It sounds cold, like the house was once warm and cozy, and now it has become a hollow, damp cave.  It sounds sad, as if something were once full, and now it is, forever, empty, never to be filled again.  

I have been down the path of mourning.  I have sobbed when my child drove off in his car, I have wept at baby pictures, and questioned how sane I was when I used any contraception at all.  I jealously eyed vintage pictures of families with loads of children, parents who had the content expressions of ones who would never experience the loneliness I felt.  By the time their last was born, their first probably had grandchildren to fill in any voids!  

And then, something happened to me.  I’m not quite sure when it happened.  Perhaps it was when I was scraping the last of the potato salad in the dishwasher after everyone left the table to watch television or check their email. No, maybe it was when my son told me to stop hovering over him.  Well, actually, it could have been when I almost blacked out from worry when I woke up and my son was still not home from work.  (He went out with friends and forgot to text me.)

I began to think of myself again.  Not necessarily the self I am now.  I thought about all the selves I’ve been:  the little girl self, the self-conscious teenager, the earnest student, the confused twenty

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