Either Sadness or Euphoria

My wife and I began as a limited partnership, so to speak, in 1977. We expanded to a trio with the birth of our son Patrick in 1982 and became a quartet when Michelle was born in 1987. Children, as they so often, and correctly, do, grow up and become their own persons. 

Our house in Norwich got a little bigger some years ago when Patrick moved out to write his own adventure novel. I remember sitting in our then car, a Mitsubishi Mirage, crying my eyes out after his mom and I had said goodbye to him at the apartment he'd taken in Boston. I think I cried for a number of hours that day and in the days that followed. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we reverted to being a trio.

Both of us considerably younger than the next picture

Yesterday our daughter struck out on her own, renting her own truck and muscling, along with Kyle with whom she will be living, a huge portion of her possessions from our house to the household he and she are setting up as she starts the first chapter of her new story.

I was kind of proud of myself for being mostly dry-eyed as boxes headed out the door and into the truck but concede that was only because I concentrated on other things. And then I thought about holding her entirely in the crook of my arm on the day she was born and listening to her snick her tongue against the alveolar fricative ridge on the roof of her mouth to make a clicking sound when she had had enough to eat and it became very moist around my face.

Stalking the wild lingonberries

Her mom and I are very proud that she is ready for the world. If only my heart were.
-bill kenny