Thanks, Demosthenes. (Did you get the prom picture I sent you?)

thanks, Wooley. It really is kind of daunting, thinking about an "empty nest"...

then again....hmmm. But I'm not at that point yet.

Two daughters, right? In a few years Keifus - YOU'RE IN FOR IT, MAN!

Bailey will comfort you. Oh, wait, I forgot. Wow. Awwkwarrd. . .

You're right about the Victoria Filet.

Thanks, Artandsoul. (All girls, so close in age? You have your hands full, too!)

smooches.

double smooches.

(I still have Bailey - the guy who used to own her is in a mental hospital somewhere in Colorado. Which ties in neatly with your insanity theme tonight. Hope he never comes back looking for her)

demosthenes2@optonline.net thanks!

Revels in their mental disturbances, and steals their pets. Finally, something acerbic to clean the taste of all this Mother's Day treacle out of my mouth.

I got nothin' just that.

I saw my mom for the last time several weeks ago. She did not know we were there and did not know me for two years now. We went to say our good byes. With each breathe, came a sigh.

The joy with children leaving is I get to relinquish the wheel of the car and look out the window again and see the telephone phones and buildings. Things, I have not seen for decades. It is a strange feeling to dependent on someone else again even though I am not dependent. It is comfortable for once.

No trauma, just quiet for once.

topazz:

Much like the house you raised them in, your mind is filled with the memories of being there for their first day at school and all of the other attributes experienced through life. Tears are appropriate and wait till they marry. I am sure you will make a great gradmother.

2700 square feet and an Elkhound we rescued. It is still too quiet!

thanks, run. I'm sorry to hear about your mother. Alzheimer's is the most thieving disease of all.

topazz:

It was time for her. No need to be sorry for this passage as we have been waiting for years.

A friend from the fray suggested this once. The next 20 years for you will be the traumatic ones. Kids will marry, friends will pass on, your parents may be great-grand parents and eventually pass from your life also, and you lady . . . you will get an opportunity to watch. Your opportunity will be to watch and see if that magic you performed every morning, day, night, and sometimes with little sleep, of being a mom rubs off on them. You will get a chance to grin or even smile as things are played back to you in verse or actions taken with them as young children and reenacted before your eyes as they start their own lives and raise their own. Sure you have a loss of influence as their minds and personalities begin to mature; but, you are looking at the finished product of your efforts.

I know this sounds "sappy;" but the phrasing and topic is difficult without swerving into that territory. You are already on a new path and this is just another were you will take on a new role in their lives. I think you will do well at it as you seem to be cut from the same cloth as most moms on the fray. So a few tears during the passage marking the end of one path and the start of a new one is not extraordinary and is expected. I think you will like the new path.

run - that is beautifully said ... motherhood lasts our whole lives and if we can actively watch we can realize we're still in it.... thanks!