Reply to "College Fall Season - 2011"

The time had finally arrived. My wife and I dropped our son off at college Sunday afternoon. It was a little easier than I anticipated, as I could feel his excitement of being on his own and the independance he'll now enjoy. We helped him set his dorm up and took him out to an early dinner afterwards. We spent some good quality time together and gave him the typical parental advice. I drove him back to campus, and I had a gut feeling that it may become emotional for my wife. So rather than walk him back to his dorm, I pulled to the curb and kept the motor running in my Suburban, I got out, gave him a big hug, told him that I loved him and I was proud of him, nice and quick.....Okay, in comes my wife. The waterfall was flowing before she could get to my son for her hug and she continued with the flow of tears for the first fifteen minutes of our drive back home, we're going to miss him!

During the drive home I reminded her that he's only 72 miles away. She replied, "yes, I realize he's close, but it's never going to be the same again. He is a baseball player, so he won't have as much time at home during the holidays and summer." I thought about it, ya know, she's right! My son will go through the 2011-2012 school year and baseball season and be finished in mid-June. He has already been assigned to his summer team in Washington, which will start immediately after school ends, and leave him with about three weeks with mom and dad next summer before he's back at school again for his sophomore year.

There are many parents on this site with children in college much further away than our son. Some are student-athletes playing baseball or other sports, and some are just students finding their way. Other parents have kids that are in the military serving our country on foreign soil thousands of miles away. It doesn't matter if our kids are ten miles from us or ten thousand, as parents, we miss them just the same. But I'll admit, I'm very fortunate.

My son has batting practice tomorrow morning, and his first college bullpen. I'll call him tomorrow night to see how everything went. I'm sure he'll do great...he has worked his buns off to get where he's at, I'm proud of him.

P.S.- I have a daugter that's a senior in HS...my wife and I will go through this again next year and become "Empty Nesters"...but that's another thread!