HOUR 9<\/p>\n
MY DAUGHTER LEAVES FOR COLLEGE<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Most parents send their children to college<\/p>\n
And survive the parting.<\/p>\n
Why was it so difficult for me?<\/p>\n
So wrenching?<\/p>\n
She had a protective life,<\/p>\n
and I pushed her to leave,<\/p>\n
to experience life on her own.<\/p>\n
But I cried so hard,<\/p>\n
even she asked bewildered,<\/p>\n
college was only forty minutes away.<\/p>\n
Was it because there were just the four of us here,<\/p>\n
in the USA?<\/p>\n
Just my husband and two girls?<\/p>\n
We have a tight bond, it is true,<\/p>\n
But other families do too.<\/p>\n
Was it because my younger daughter<\/p>\n
is a Downs syndrome,<\/p>\n
and what normalcy we experienced<\/p>\n
would disappear?<\/p>\n
After much self-analyzing,<\/p>\n
I think it is this:<\/p>\n
We will never be a family of four<\/p>\n
again.<\/p>\n
I sensed when she left,<\/p>\n
She would never come back<\/p>\n
and live in our house again.<\/p>\n
And I was right.<\/p>\n
She went to grad school,<\/p>\n
married, and moved to another state.<\/p>\n
And I am so proud of her!<\/p>\n
She has children, and we love them<\/p>\n
dearly.<\/p>\n
Yet I miss her.<\/p>\n
When she comes home,<\/p>\n
it\u2019s precious \u2013 we are eight now.<\/p>\n
And when she leaves,<\/p>\n
I miss her all over again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HOUR 9 MY DAUGHTER LEAVES FOR COLLEGE Most parents send their children to college And survive the parting. Why was it so difficult for me? So wrenching? She had a protective life, and I pushed her to leave, to experience life on her own….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136374,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136366\/revisions\/136374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}