The final watershed

It was a good thing for the pumpkin custard. My tears had dried by then. Earlier on in the Thai meal across from the GoTrain Station in Oakville, Ontario on Labour Day 2007, I had to shift my thoughts a bit to keep from blubbering all over the fine linen.

This was, after all, the final instalment in taking daddy's little girl to school. And the term "final" has such a finality to it. First, a very brief history.

Instalment one was Labour Day Sunday 1998 when my wife and I dropped off our eldest daughter at a college 4 hours away from our home. I quite literally wept all the way home that day, not really out of sadness, but more out of the realization of the watershed moment, that our family would never be the same from this moment forward.

The second instalment was kind of an odd situation. The respective daughter had not moved away from home (well, not really). Actually, I was saying goodbye to her at her new home, while my wife and I were leaving town for our new home, with our collective prior residence being occupied by tenants. I will always remember the look my daughter gave me just before I closed the car door. During the six hour drive that ensused, whenever I revisualized my daughter's loving gaze, I just cried.

Which brings us to the current daughter leaving home. She actually was on her own last year with daughter #2, but she had come to live with her mother and I this summer to work in the big city. It was tough to say goodbye to her now, but I was so excited for her that she had thrown caution to the wind and moved wholesale to Ontario.

Now that I have left Oakville, I really miss her, but I know I will be back again to see her, and to try some more of that pumpkin custard.