The separation pang
The large red suitcase weighed 30.2 kg. Clothes and books vied for space. But what also called the shots were the cooking spices and mixed powders that had been handcrafted with love. But these were sprinkled with a dash of anxiety as well. ‘Why anxiety?’ One may ask. Well, that emotion is driven by the fact that our girl is travelling to another country to pursue her dream and may not get her desi gastronomical requirements. Ah, that explains the podis in lock-and-lock boxes!
I am sure this is the same story in every household where children leave home to pursue their dream education or job. What everyone is also familiar with is that sinking feeling in the heart, an emptiness that sets in a fortnight before the airport check-in or train departure. It manifests itself in worrying unnecessarily, bouts of anxiety, and a deficit of concentration. We put on a happy face but endlessly worry about whether our girl/boy would have a proper breakfast or feel guilty we
will not be around to give them pepper rasam when they have a bad bout
of cold.
However, one part of us is very happy that our little one is now all grown up and wants to fly off the nest. We have also been in that age, and I am sure felt stifled when our parents kept giving us advice and instructions galore before each trip. We have snapped at them, as we have had this ‘I am grown up; why is all this fuss about’ feeling. And we would have promised ourselves to ‘be different, cool parents’—a promise we break into pieces with our parental hammer when our little ones start nurturing their wings!
We enable them to have wings, do trial flights, and help them establish their identity; we brag about their achievements and gloat about the fact that ‘they are independent and self-sufficient’. When the time comes for the suitcases to be packed, for the podis to be stuffed in between the clothes and certificates, our heart does a U-turn. We do not mind the umbilical cord being stretched, but we do not want it snapped.
Education enables children to think and empowers them to make choices. We sometimes pooh pooh the empty nester syndrome; ‘after all, it is their life’, we say.
Many parents would not have been able to live their life on their terms, so they go that extra mile to ensure their children choose their path and scramble for whatever financial support they can give them.
When the moment of separation stares at us, when we see our daughter or son wheel their 30-kg suitcase to live their life, there is a sharp stab in the heart. Writer Dorothy Canfield had coined the phrase ‘Empty Nest’ in her book, Mothers and Children, way back in 1914. It is all the more relevant today in the globalised platform.
Enabling is easy, separation is so difficult.