By Dave Crow
Conversations
Dave Crow
My daughter, who is my middle child, is about to graduate from college. I’m having trouble believing it. These four years went even faster than her four years of high school. She recently decided to go for a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering. She applied to 10 universities around the country to continue her studies with an eye towards getting a PhD. As of this writing, she’s received offers from eight of the 10 schools she applied to and is waiting for an answer from the final two.
There has been a lot of traveling to visit these schools. There are the various labs to tour, various other doctoral students who are also working in her field to meet and interview. Eventually, there will be various meetings with the professors who will provide the guidance and funding for her research. This last week included trips to visit Georgia Tech, the University of Virginia and North Carolina State.
Yes, I am very proud of my daughter, but that was the case before she decided she wanted to pursue an advanced degree. Now I am very impressed with my daughter.
My daughter has grown into a woman and is coming into her own life. Soon she will be living on her own and, mostly, paying her own way with the research grants she will receive. One day in the not-too-distant future, if God is willing and the creek don’t rise, she will graduate with her doctorate and she will be my doctor daughter. Then she will launch into a career and continue to grow as the independent person her mother and I raised her to be. I’m very happy when I think these thoughts, but it is also a touch sad.
There are a lot of strange things to get used to as an empty-nest parent. While my children are always in my thoughts, one of the toughest parts has been that I now only see still photographs of their lives. It is through those photographs that I realize just how much they’ve grown and changed in the years since they all left home for school. I got a good dose of that feeling when I started going through this process with my daughter.
When my daughter lived at home during her childhood, I got to see her grow and change every day. Some of that growth and change happened so slowly that I didn’t notice it until someone else who didn’t see her every day pointed out how tall she was getting or how her face was changing as she grew up. Some changes were more immediately noticeable, such as when I learned she stopped watching Blues Clues and started watching Hannah Montana. And some changes were shockingly fast, such as the time my little girl went up to her room and then came back down the stairs a young lady, dressed to go to her senior prom. Yet all those changes happened right there in front of me. It played out like a movie in real time.
Now, as I watch her speak about her chosen field of study in technical jargon I cannot even begin to comprehend, I realize that somewhere between the day I dropped her off at college and this week my daughter did a lot of growing and changing. And I wasn’t there to see it happen. I only got to see the end result.
It’s like someone shot a beautiful portrait of a young woman, only now instead of watching the photographer choose a lens and meter the light, I had to go to the museum, buy a ticket and view the final portrait like everyone else. I can admire it. Maybe I played small part in the preparation of it. But now the photographer works on her own, out of my sight, and all I see is the end product.
So yeah, I get a little sad when I realize that my daughter will live the majority of the rest of her life out of my sight. She will continue to grow and change and make her own beautiful picture of a life. From time to time, I’ll buy a ticket and go view the finished product, and it will amaze me and fill me with awe and wonder, just like she did when I watched her take her first breath. I will continue to be proud of and impressed with her as she sets her own course and achieves her goals. I want that for her.
Yet a small part of me will always miss the days when I got to watch the movie, instead of waiting for the next portrait.
David Crow lives in Orange with his wife and three children. He practices law and he asks everyone to call him “Dave.” Only his mother and his wife call him “David,” and only when they’re mad at him. You can contact Dave at Sit.a.Spell.and.Visit@gmail.com. He’ll always find a half hour for a good chat.