The agony of a beloved child flying the nest…when you’ve already suffered devastating loss

What I call “pre-mourning” started a year ago. The moment my daughter Isobel entered year 13 (upper sixth of my age) and started talking excitedly about college.

Until then, I had not fully envisioned a time when my children would move out of the house and start living their own lives. The realization that this was imminent hit me like a football in the stomach.

It’s perhaps the only thing I have in common with that beautiful, wealthy, highly successful “conscious disconnection” advocate Gwyneth Paltrow, who described daughter Apple’s recent departure from college as “deep as childbirth.”

Over the next few months, whenever I passed Isobel’s bedroom to see the entire contents of her wardrobe on the floor, my initial annoyance was tempered by painful premonitions about how I would feel if she packed up her mess and left.

It was only after the dreaded day of her departure that I understood the underlying reason for the intensity of my feelings. As extreme as it may sound, the prospect of Isobel leaving somehow sparked the intense feelings of loss I had experienced when my sister, Jane, died decades earlier, when I was nine and she was eight. in a car accident.

We were at a crosswalk on our way home from school one April afternoon when a car wouldn’t stop, hit Jane and missed me by inches, even though I had held her hand. We were born only 11 months apart, we had shared a bedroom and spent almost every moment together, so her loss was unimaginably painful.

I would also suffer more sudden losses. Shortly after I left home at age 19 to attend college for journalism, my previously healthy father died of a heart attack, aged 56, and just before my youngest child’s first birthday, my mother died, also suddenly, although she was in her early 80s at the time.

On the other hand, my husband and I have been together since I was 19 and he 20, so I have no experience of loved ones leaving my life in non-catastrophic circumstances.

This means I have no real frame of reference for dealing with the kind of absence that comes with a kid going to college. Grief is a common emotion for parents when children leave the house, according to Celia Dodd, author of The Empty Nest: Your Changing Family, Your New Direction.

“This intense sadness is natural because a parent’s life has been closely intertwined with their child’s for so many years and in so many different ways — since they were basically in the womb,” she tells me. “So it’s common to experience an almost physical sense of loss; many mothers say they feel they have lost a part of themselves.

“That’s related to fear and even fear, not just about how your child will do without you, but also about how you will do without him.”

In my case, this is reinforced by the tragedies of my past. My parents and four older siblings were unable to support me in my grief after Jane died.

Being the late 1970s, no one mentioned counseling, neither because of the trauma of being the only person with my sister as she lay dying, nor because of the crippling grief that followed, so I had to find a way myself to get through. For years I cried myself to sleep every night.

Much later, after my father’s sudden death, my mother, who could not bear to be alone in the family home, sold it and moved into a one-bedroom flat, where she lived for a year before remarrying.

This meant that, unlike most teens and twenties, many of whom were boomerangs for years, I never had a home to return to.

This exacerbated my negative associations with what is, after all, a perfectly normal stage of development.

The sudden absence of a loved one had hitherto been a devastating loss to me. I’ve read enough about psychology to know that our primeval brain — whose main function is to survive — has a nasty habit of taking over in times like these, preparing us for and, crucially, protecting us from perceived threats .

I consider myself lucky that in 2020 my oldest, Daniel, 20, chose to work for a homeless charity instead of going to college, so I got a reprieve from this particular kind of parental grief. His wages are not yet sufficient to pay the rent in London, so he still lives at home.

However, Isobel, 18, was enthusiastic about the social and community life of the college years. A selfish part of me couldn’t help but fantasize about failing her grades and having to stay home for an extra year to retake.

But all her hard work paid off and reality dawned: Isobel went to university to study sociology.

As she wept with joy and hugged me and her father, Dillon, who is an academic, every maternal emotion—pride, relief, fear, anxiety, fear, and a sense of impending loss—fought for space in my mind and body. Her start date was only four weeks and there were many practical things to do, from arranging housing and student finance to helping her choose modules.

Isobel’s face lit up at the prospect of her newfound independence as she picked mugs at Ikea. Though excited for her, the image of my daughter reaching into an unfamiliar cupboard for a cup to brew her morning coffee made me gag.

I woke up the morning of her departure with the tightest knot of fear in my stomach. I went for a run to release some tension. As Cat Stevens’ Wild World—which I know isn’t about his daughter leaving the house, but could easily be—played through my earphones, tears ran down my cheeks.

The two-hour drive, although the car was loaded with all the worldly goods from Isobel and half from Ikea, felt like any other family road trip – our youngest, Christian, 14, with whom she has a close relationship, came along for the ride. the drive. We had two hours left to unpack, then it was time for the moment I had dreaded for so long.

Isobel said she couldn’t handle my tears, so I managed to hold them back as we hugged and kissed goodbye with promises to call, FaceTime, and come over.

Instead, I sobbed quietly on the drive back. It was dark by the time we got home, which made everything feel even more gloomy. As we walked through the door, I felt so panicky that I struggled to fully catch my breath.

After allowing myself a moment alone in her bedroom, where every surface had been cleaned but her sweet scent lingered, I poured myself a glass of wine (something I wouldn’t normally allow myself on a Sunday) and settled in. the couch, with Christian in front of the TV. He is an attentive, loving boy and I was happy to have him there, but the experience was bittersweet.

Isobel usually sat on the couch with us and when I asked how Christian was feeling, he said he wasn’t able to “dig” into his feelings about her leaving “just recently.”

Somehow the ten days since we dropped off Isobel, instead of the purgatory I feared so much, have been easier than the twelve months that preceded it.

We chatted every day, mostly on FaceTime, and I see she’s doing well. I’ve also had text messages and “Uber family” alerts at 4 a.m.—she clearly made the most of freshman week—letting me know she was “home.”

While that word, associated with somewhere other than our home, feels like a dagger to my heart, I really appreciate her letting me know she’s safe.

Something has ended. That little girl whose hand I held on her first day at nursery, when she ran terrified to the gate, is all grown up. But unlike my sister Jane—Isobel’s middle name, by the way—I know I haven’t lost her. She’s just starting what I’m sure will be a wonderful adult life.

I look forward to hearing all about it and of course playing as much of a part as she wants to.