Remembering the day when I took my daughter off to college so many miles away

Tears of sadness and tears of joy, but a rite of passage that you're lucky to experience

I wrote this column in September of 1994 as the opening monologue for my nightly radio show on KFBK in Sacramento after returning home from taking my daughter, Erin, to Tucson to begin her freshman year at the University of Arizona. Over the years, it has appeared in a number of publications around the country. I repeat it here now for all those parents who find themselves in similar circumstances this year.

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For years, they warned me this day would come. And I always said “I hope so.”

What they were talking about are the feelings a parent goes through as one child, and then another, grows old enough to go away and begin life as a young adult.

And when the youngest goes, it’s like the end of the process. It causes much joy, much pain, much excitement, much sadness, much reflection and intense anticipation.

For it isn’t an ending so much as it is a beginning. For certain, when a child goes away, the physical, day-to-day relationship with a parent changes. But the emotional relationship remains much the same. Or maybe it even grows to newer and more wonderful levels.

Yes, my turn — my transition, really — came several weeks ago when I drove my daughter, my youngest, to school at the University of Arizona.

So far away when you’re driving a car jammed with the odd collections of a 17-year-old’s life.

A stereo. Clothes. Shoes. Favorite posters. Photos of friends and family. Several stuffed animals, some nearly as old as she is.

And her hopes and dreams were also packed in that crowded car, for this was something she had imagined since she was a little girl. Not necessarily this school, maybe, but going off to college one day. Someplace. Sometime. It’s a good dream and you’re lucky if you get to live it.

Still, as we laughed and sang and stopped at nearly every roadside attraction that offered a chance to eat or to play, it was like every other vacation we had taken since she was just a baby.

Traveling. She had always loved to travel. Packing up the car and taking off on the spur of the moment.

Going for a ride up the valley late on a summer night. Driving to a nearby town just for an ice cream. Going away for a weekend. Or a week. Or longer. She loved it. We both did.

Only this was one vacation where she wouldn’t be making the return trip home with me.

Fortunately — very fortunately — when you arrive on campus with a freshman in the front seat, there are many, many distractions to keep you occupied. But you know that no matter how much you push it to the back of your mind, just around the corner the moment is coming when you will say goodbye to each other in a way you have never said goodbye before.

And, no matter how many times you have thought about it, no matter how many times you have prepared yourself for what you will say and how you will deal with how you feel, it smacks you in the face when it actually happens.

We sat for a long while in the warm Arizona night on a cement barrier surrounding a tree outside her dorm room. Talking only with our hearts. Wishing we could freeze the moment forever and never move again.

Yes, there were tears, but you can’t cry if you don’t love.

Since then, I have been asked many times by people who know me well about just how hard and how sad that moment must have been.

And I tell them yes, it was hard. But no, it wasn’t sad. It wasn’t sad at all.

For this is what you dream of for your children. This is a part of your fondest hopes.

You want them to grow up. To go off on their own. To be independent. To find their way. And yet, to let you know, in no uncertain terms, how much they love you. And for you to be able to show them in return how very much you love them.

A parent can experience no greater joy than to watch his children spread their wings and fly.

I will always be her father and she will always be my daughter. No amount of time or distance, and no combination of circumstances and events, can change that simple, wonderful fact.

But the practical aspects of our relationship will change in significant and, yes, wonderful ways.

For instance, never before have I received a long, heartfelt letter from her explaining what is going on in her life, a life that is now 900 miles away from mine. Before, she could always just come into the kitchen and tell me.

Never before have I received a phone call from her just to chat. Just to see what I was doing. Just to see what was going on.

Never before have I been invited to something called “Parents Weekend,” where I’ll be allowed and perhaps even encouraged to act like the proud father I am and root for a football team I wouldn’t have dreamed of rooting for just six months ago.

Then one day late last week came a copy of her first freshman English essay.

And I realized the last 17 years have been as wonderful for her as they have been for me. That we’ve been thinking the same thoughts all this time.

The essay was titled simply “My Dad” and it began, “Ever since the day I was born my Dad and I have been very close.”

And then she remembered all those early days when I was lucky enough to take her along to my job as a sports writer.

“When I was a baby, my Dad used to take me to football and basketball games in my baby basket. Actually, I went to many places in that basket with my Dad. Basically, everywhere my Dad went, I went, too.

“I finally outgrew that baby basket, but I never outgrew my Dad. My bonds with my Dad go so far back and so deep they can never be broken.

“Now I am in college, hundreds of miles away from my Dad, yet he is still my best friend. It broke my heart to say goodbye, but I know we are always in each other’s thoughts. He will always be my best friend.”

Sad?

No.

I’m the luckiest guy on the face of the Earth.

Reach me at bobdunning@thewaryone.com