The gift of space

’Tis the season for coloring books, pencil boxes, art paper and intermediate pads; khaki shorts and white polo shirts; Disney lunch boxes and Coleman water jugs. It’s back-to-school season and you know which part of department stores and malls to avoid if you don’t want to be caught in the back-to-school stampede.

I, too, was getting ready for my son’s going back to school, but what was I doing in the home section of Federal Hardware and True Value? For instead of the normal checklist for pen, paper and plastic envelopes, my son Chino’s back-to-school checklist included: Shower caddy, bidet, towel rack, hamper, desk lamp and wall clock. He had handed his father a separate checklist, which included a study desk, another computer and printer.

D-Day had come and I was determined to survive it.

My only child was going off to university and is camping out in his own condo – hence the hamper and the towel rack. Now, my husband Ed and I can pay more attention to our dog Scud, and perhaps read more manuals on how to give more quality time to attention-starved beagles.

* * *

"It’s not as if I’m never coming back, Mom!" Chino protested when I tried to sneak in a family picture in his maleta, so he can display it on his study desk in his room at the condo, which he shares with two others (males, if I may stress). "I’ll only be an hour away."

"Why, won’t you miss us?" I retorted with genuine indignation.

Chino gave me his most disarming smile, put an arm around me, and said, "But I have your picture naman in my wallet." Yeah, sure, I believe him. You know what they say about willing yourself to believe in lies because the truth will hurt?

* * *

Last Christmas, my friend Mila A., mother of my godson Eman, gave me a book, entitled Everything I Know (Basic Rules from a Jewish Mother), by Sharon Strassfeld. It contains very down-to-earth, everyday pieces of advice written to her children on the eve of their departure for college. In America, when children go off to college, they really leave home, for university is usually very far from home – in another city, another state. In a sense, most Filipino parents don’t feel the Empty Nest Syndrome yet when their children go off to college, for most of them still live at home at this time.

Unfortunately for me, I am one of the few exceptions. And since I married relatively young, I have few contemporaries who have college-age children (why, some of them are still hatching chicks!) and when we get together, some of them still talk about Harry Potter.

But for me, the empty nest is real. "For those of us who have done it," writes Sharon, who started writing Everything I Know as her daughter Kayla’s departure for college drew closer, "letting our first child leave home, knowing that in all likelihood she will never return, that her leaving spells the end to the warm, connected safe family we have spent trying to build, is an agonizing process." Tell me about it.

Sharon intended the book to be her "home-leaving" gift to her eldest daughter, as she found herself yearning "to give her armor/treasure to take on her journey – something that in her eyes would have value not only for that moment but forever in her life."

Sharon wrote a 20-page book for her daughter Kayla, and another for her son Noam, when it was his turn to leave home for college. The book Everything I Know is a combination of the two books she wrote to her children as a graduation present. Although it shows her biases as a Jewish mother, the book contains many signposts, which all those embarking on a new journey in their lives – regardless of color or creed – can look to for direction.

Here are some of them, which are supported in her book by heartwarming anecdotes and real-life situations:

•My mother bought almost anything if it was on sale. I have learned from this that it is better to buy the one thing you really love.

•Few decisions in life need to be made immediately. It’s often better to wait a few days before making a decision.

•Never rent if you can buy.

•Men and women are profoundly different from one another in ways we neither of us fully understand… so it is pointless to judge a man with a woman’s ears.

•It’s important that you love your work. Never stay with a job just because it’s a job. Work at things that you love and that fill up your life.

•When you are in a relationship, pay attention to small things. One of the scariest things I know is that most marriages don’t break up over any large dramatic event. Most marriages are so delicately balanced that a very small decision or neglect or misunderstanding can permanently disable the entire mechanism.

•Process anger. Don’t mask it with humor or bury it away somewhere. Anger, real anger, is like yeast. It can become its own living organism and bubble away, spreading everywhere. So learn to talk.

•Avoid fried foods whenever possible.

•If a glass is chipped, throw it out.

•Get in touch with that small voice inside you. That voice is steady and clear and you can trust it and use it as your guide all your life.

•The way to love your children is to give them the tools they will need to function as responsible adults in the world. Paradoxically, this requires you, as parents, to do the one thing you don’t ever want to do – let your children grow away from you.

* * *

After reading the book, I toyed with the idea of writing my own little missives to Chino, which, like colorful Post-It’s, he could stick on the galleries of his heart and mind.

My pieces of advice ("Wash your hands all the time." "Always look to the left first before crossing the street." ) won’t fill up a book, and if I know my son, he’s going to look at this book of advice from me and say, "Mom! I’m only going to be an hour away. Text me na lang."

So Chino, I won’t be giving you a book on how to live your life. I think I’ve taught you pretty much how I think a good life must be lived, but in the end, you’re going to live your life on your terms, not mine. Enjoy life, as Dad once told you.

I’ve given you love and guidance from the moment you were born.

And now, as you go off to college, it is the gift of space that I give to you.