A post thatI had put on my personal Facebook page this morning, posed thequestion, “How in the hell do you say ‘Until next time…..’ to one of your children?” Our 22 year old flew out of Denver International a few hours ago. He had helped us with the drive from FL to CO a couple of weeks ago when we moved. The intent is that he would move our here in possibly six months or so, but that is a very long time.

I have been fortunate, up until this point, to not have hadto say those words to one of my boys before (My being 1/3 Clark W Griswold, I am totally about family and closeness.). I was (am) totally heartbroken. I’m sure that his brother is too – he will now be like an only child. He has not made any new friends yet and I’m sure will miss his brother sorely.

There was a 50/50 chance that the airline employee would let my other son (16 – his brother) and I, go with him to the gate. Well, honestly, I thought it was more like 80/20. When I had gone to the airport to pick up my husband one time after he’d been gone for two months, I was very tearful while asking the airline check-in person for a gate pass so that I could be there to meet his flight. They were kind enough to let me and gave me a pass. I’m not sure if it was because it was in the late evening when it wasn’t so busy. The next time I had to take him to the airport where I wouldn’t see him for another few months, I tried to go with him to the gate. I was actually bawling that time. I was denied.

As I helped my son check his bag in, I started crying as I touched his shoulder and explained to the woman behind the counter that he was my baby, and that he’d never been away from me before. Could we please go with them to the gate? God bless her! I was able to watch him taxi away from the gate. He should be landing, actually, any minutenow. Guess what? He just texted me. He just landed!

I’m so sad justlookingin his empty room. He moved most of his things here to CO, but I had them clean the room and put everything in the closet in case we needed to use the room for overnight visitors.

We crammed a lot of activities and sightseeing into these past two weeks, and I’ve got tons of info and pictures to post over the next week. We had a wonderful time together.