And will. Write each a special poem/essay encapsulating what you know and love most about them including your regrets, your mutual triumphs, who they are and what they have meant to you (individually) throughout the past 18 years.
Then print them and frame them and bring them to your children on parent’s weekend.
My father did this for all four of us. I still have his hanging on my wall in my home today as it did in my dorm room (and yeah, I bawled like a four year old when I read it the first time and probably will again when he’s gone, I’ve eulogized him and these are the sorts of things I have left).
For what it’s worth, my mother sobbed when she dropped me off and all the way home (as she did with all four of us [poor Dad!]). It’s par for the course.
But this moment is an opportunity—and you can write. And that will last. And they (and you) will have an everlasting testimony to what you have built.
On the rewinding—we all do our best and we all have regrets. You know that already. I’ve every confidence in you.
Think about what you… what we… went through to create this moment, to build these families. Think about the subsequent love and moments of joy that have stayed with you, the moments of regret and guilt you never thought you could purge, the passing moments that touched you far beyond your expectation to ever be touched. Think hard. Then write those. Write all of them and all of their unvarnished glory and remember that we are wonderfully, marvelously flawed and capable creatures.
And give them that gift of words from your heart that they will carry with them for decades and re-read after you’re gone and cry when they do so (well, you’ll all do that, but that’s rather the point).
This is a moment that comes once and a particularly poignant one. You can (and ought to) do this.
I believe in you.
