My niece the professor

My niece often sends us pictures of her two daughters, Emma and Lilia, capturing whatever adventure they are having at the moment whether it is a gigantic musical concert or a girl scout event.

The oldest, Emma, is a rather shy and quiet young woman. The younger is far from shy or quiet. Her grandmother says she is a “pistol.”

My niece, who is a professor at Rutgers, an accomplished professional and take charge gal, sent me an email last week.

First, some background.

Emma is a dedicated student, having been tutored by two of the most committed gurus in New Jersey, her parents.

Kathe, my niece would check Emma’s English and social Studies homework every day, making corrections so that Emma could hand in a better paper while Jim,  the dad, checked the science and math homework, for the same reasons.

No one checks Lilia’s homework. She is adamant about that.

Last week Emma went off to college. Thus the genesis of the email.

Kathe wondered why she wasn’t able to reach Emma.

Did she turn off her cell phone?  Was she ill?  (I am smiling) And, why isn’t she coming home this weekend?

Emma’s college is only 45 minutes distance from her parents, but I do think that Emma may be comfortable in making that distance much further, not because of anything negative, but rather to test an emerging persona.

I do so remember coming to college.

My parents who never had the time or inclination to correct my homework, drove me and my one suitcase and cardboard box to SU, a good four and a half hours from our home.

I can remember not being able to find the campus, driving all over downtown, stopping to ask directions near Wolf Street.

Stepping into my dorm room, putting my clothes in the closet, hanging up posters and filling the bookcase were the actions of a young woman testing herself.  Could Emma be doing the same? One would hope so.

I didn’t even think of going home until Thanksgiving.

It was fun to go home on the train, Ann, the coed, who had managed to register for her classes, go every day, get good grades, have clean clothes and change her bed every week, moving the top sheet to become a bottom sheet and putting a clean bottom sheet…no fitted sheets in those days…on the top. She wrote letters faithfully and used the old “person to person” ploy to send telephone messages for her parents without paying for them.

Those two things are not something Kathe would expect from Emma, not with personal cell phones and email.

When our son went to college, we took him to his dorm, helped him unpack and didn’t bother him until parents’ weekend.

He went to LeMoyne but he might as well have been in California.

Did I want to call? Did I want to drop in and visit?  You bettcha!!

But I knew that this was his time to fly.

I can say the same for our daughter, in college in Geneseo, we could have visited, called, emailed, etc., but we stood our distances.

Both times it was hard, hard to give up the feeling that we might be needed, hoping that we were sometimes needed, but knowing, again, that children leaving and testing their wings, means that parents have to find another kind of wings. Wings that sound loudly in a hollow house.

There is no handbook for this.

With all of Kathe’s knowledge, her organized and productive life, this is something that she will have to make up as she goes along.

Maybe I’ll  send her a few columns entitled Ramblings from the Empty Nest …even though hers is not quite empty yet.