The Happiest Sad Week of a Sad Year

A new week, a new month, a new season. So what else is new?

As of the first of this month, this also became the year our son moved out. I keep telling myself it’s a happy day because it is. Still, my wife and I will miss him. He’s in his early 20s, but we would have been content to follow the Italian model and keep him at home until he got married. 

That said, he wasn’t going to find his wife here in the sparsely populated San Luis Valley, let alone the kind of job that would have him certified as a journeyman in two states. In the middle of a pandemic panic-induced lockdown, he had three companies looking to bring him in to work. He could easily have gotten work here in the Valley, but it would have been a lateral move at best, and more likely a step back. It would not be a noble sacrifice on his part to stay here for his parents’ sake. It would be a foolishly squandered opportunity.

What most impresses me is how my son, in the six weeks since he left his last job, never bothered filing for unemployment. He had too much pride and no patience for the paperwork and jumping-through-hoops. He had enough in savings to pay his bills and still help his parents on the side. When all was said and done, he had plenty left to get him started again in Colorado Springs. 

When he moved back in with us three years ago, I told him to take the opportunity to “stack paper,” i.e., put something back from every paycheck. Well, bless him if he didn’t do just that.

He’s long been too big for these toys but we can’t give them up. These, as least we can hang onto.

 

As with the passing of our longtime family cat Otis in March, this was something that had to happen sooner or later, and if we mourn, it’s for us. I scolded myself as I watched him drive away, “If it’s this damned hard on you, make a bunch of money and move yourself closer!”

Maybe that’s just what I’ll do. It’s an incentive to finish writing this last book.