Cold Autumnal air invades my summer evenings, and I feel the chi drain from my body as if it were a tree.
Two nights in a row, I get into bed before 8 and sleep a dozen hours.
The following night my husband wakes me like a newborn, as he shuffles from our bed to the bathroom and back again, again and again.
The next night, our youngest, the 13 year old, does the same.
The third night, I wake on my own, but can’t get back to sleep.
I look for the moon, but it’s dark outside. I consider my cycle, but it’s still a ways off. I review my day, but there was no caffeine.
I remember then. My son is missing. The first-born. The one to be 18 tomorrow. But he’s just over at a friend’s house, for now.
In a week’s time, he’ll be gone–for good–off to college.
As the hours pass, I grow sleepy, and the lamp shade that sits on my floor, waiting to be mounted, becomes a Moses Basket, the one he sleeps inside.
I could pick him up, but I let him sleep, and I sleep too… dreaming goodbyes.
The Empty Nest Diary 