Our daughter, Sloan, is coming home next week for Thanksgiving. My sons, who live nearby, and their wives are coming too ... and my grandson.
We don't all get together that often, and usually when we do, I'm the one who has to instigate it.
It takes much shuffling of schedules, both work and recreational, to manage it ... and that kind of makes me sad. I always hoped that we would have the kind of family I had when I was growing up. One that just naturally comes together and hangs out pretty regularly ... but that's not to be.
Sloan is spending the year student teaching about two hours away. She is winding up her last few months of college and each time she comes home I feel like I'm living on borrowed time. She has made no secret to the fact that she wants to move to a larger city than the small town we live in ... and she's made no secret that she hopes that city is some distance from here.
Of course, I have no wish to clip her wings, her life is her own to manage. But how can I get past the fact that she's on her way out? It wasn't something I did. I intended to have a career where I would move from place to place ... but I ended up back in my home town and here I've stayed. Our family just doesn't move away ... not my brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews, sons ... nobody (well I do have an odd cousin who moved to California, but I don't usually count her).
I'm just wondering ... of all the people who feel they have to leave, why does it have to be my only daugher?
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