I sat in the waiting room surrounded by empty purple, orange, and yellow chairs. The pediatrician’s office was strangely quiet, especially without one of my kids beside me.
I tried to force myself into a state of nostalgia, to trick my heart into feeling something. I’d sat in this place dozens of times over the years.
Sick visits.
Well checks.
Blue card pick-up.
I noticed the wooden puzzles on the toy table. They’ve been there for 17 years, at least, and so has the cube of magnetic mazes that’s bolted to the table. The artwork on the wall hasn’t changed, pictures of things kids like such as bicycles and fish. The handicap-accessible door still wheezes when a patient pushes the big silver button to walk in or out.
Abby Kate has been a patient at this practice since she was a newborn. The difference in the visit she and I had last week is that Abby Kate went to the exam room by herself.
I offered to go with her.
“No. I’ve got it,” she said without a blink or doubt.
The doctor’s office was our third and final stop for what I joked was the Abby Kate world tour. The day before we’d been to an appointment related to college admissions. The week had started at a photography studio for senior pictures.
I don’t know what I expected to happen to me when I saw Abby Kate sitting on a stool, wrapped in the traditional black drape that girls wear for senior portraits. Mostly, I just wanted to be finished.
When image proofs arrived in my inbox the next day, I texted the four I liked the most to my friend Cynthia.
“I don’t really feel anything,” I typed. “I’m just going through the motions.”
I knew Cynthia would help me sort out what I was not feeling. She has a deep affection for Abby Kate. She’s also graduated her own children from high school and college. In a show of solidarity she answered,
“That’s a good place to be. Stay there as long as you can.”
So, when is it supposed to hit me? When will my brain or my heart trigger the anticipated flood of emotion that my first chick is close to flying the coop? Because she is going to fly.
Abby Kate is determined that she is going away to college. She’s already picked the one where she wants to land. Two weeks ago, she had a test run during a college-sponsored leadership camp on a different campus. She slept in dorm rooms, ate in the dining hall, attended lectures and workshops, and didn’t know a single soul there. And she soared.
Every morning my phone pinged with a text from her.
“Good morning! I’m awake!”
She called me each night before bedtime with a robust re-telling of her day.
“I ziplined today!”
“I made two new friends!”
“I listened to a man whose brother was killed on Flight 93. I asked him how he felt when Osama Bin Laden was killed.”
“The speaker we heard used to teach AP History. I asked him what his favorite time period was to teach and I told him about mine.”
She is ready.
She is ready to meet new people.
She is ready to learn new things.
She is ready to conquer new challenges.
I know I’m supposed to be emotional about senior year. Friends in the same season have asked,
“Can you believe it?!”
“Our babies are seniors!”
“How did we get here so fast?”
I’m trying to share the sentimental mood, but today I keep thinking about those three words Abby Kate said in the pediatrician’s waiting room.
“I’ve got it.”
She was talking about walking alone onto a college campus where she doesn’t know anyone.
About introducing herself to strangers who will become her friends.
About asking questions in class.
About finding her place in the world.
“I’ve got it.”
I’ve spent seventeen years not only hoping I’d hear her say those words but hoping I’d believe them when she did.
I’m not naïve enough to think the tears won’t come. Maybe they’ll finally fall when I see her dressed in her cap and gown. Or when her principal, who has loved and guided Abby Kate for 12 years, awards her diploma. Maybe they’ll wait until we leave her in a dorm room and drive away without her.
Whenever they decide to pour, I’ll remember sitting in that waiting room with its purple, orange, and yellow chairs.
I’ll hear her voice.
And I’ll answer with mine.
“She’s got this.”
