The Drop off

We sat outside that final evening, each of us being annoyed by tiny flying bugs dive bombing into our arms and faces. We sat at a rickety white picnic table that separated us: parents on one side, and the moving-into-her-dorm-in-the-morning daughter, on the other. She had a small chocolate malt, I had a S’mores frozen custard treat. My wife/her mother chose to have nothing, choosing instead to use her phone to edit photos from the last few days. Photos of our small but mighty family at restaurants, outside, and numerous photos of us touring our baby’s home for the next four years. Our daughter seemed to enjoy her drink, but I couldn’t taste anything. It took everything in me to hold back my tears.

This would be the last night we’d spend, as a family, for several months. And my heart was quietly breaking. Intellectually, I knew I’d see her again during her fall break, but not saying goodnight to her, every night, was almost unfathomable to think about. I’ll go to bed Tuesday night and she won’t be there. I’ll go to the farmer’s market at the weekend and she won’t be with me—we won’t have our weekly dim sum appointment. My Project Runway buddy won’t be around. The family shorthand will be interrupted. The three of us have the best time together, and now 1/3 of the laughter in our home will be gone.

This is a death.

For 18 years our attention has mostly been  focused in one direction: on our daughter. Of course, my wife and I dated, we spent time together without our child, but this will be different. For eighteen years we’ve invested in breaking generational curses. We’ve invested in her making different mistakes than we did— no reason to follow our paths.

We want her to fuck up in new ways.

My wife and I are both only children, and our daughter is an only child, so maybe our family was tighter than most? Three singletons forming together like some kind of African-American, Pilipino, West Indian, Latin Voltron—stronger together. Like I said before, small but mighty.

Raising this girl in the way that we did created such a tight bond between us and now that bond is separating/expanding/changing and I’m feeling it.

I have a profound feeling of sadness. One of the best things about parenting is the routine of love. It’s the banter. It’s the inside jokes. It’s the nonverbal “I love yous” that happen more times in a day than one can count. Looking around the dinner table and knowing that nothing can derail this powerful unit. Just knowing that someone, unconditionally, has you and you have them.

And geographical distance won’t change this—but it will impact the immediacy of the demonstration and practice of our love.

No amount of technologically assisted form of communication can ever replace an impromptu pillow fight, or a boba run as a way to discuss something heavy. I’m thankful for texting and FaceTime, but my baby will no longer be in our home, she will be at university.

Our daughter has had a pretty rocky education journey. Seems like quite a few teachers and administrators had a difficult time dealing with a polite, sweet, loving, curious, intelligent Black girl. Whenever a school injured her, or allowed her to be injured, either me or my wife would be on it, immediately. We were ready with the hands. You can’t mess with the child of two educators. We know the language, we know how it is meant to work, and we’re better than most at the job. No arrogance. Just facts.

Now that she will be thousands of miles away—not to mention she’s 18–there is nothing we can do, if this institution decides to treat her as poorly as others have. We can’t just head to the school and let them know we’re not the ones. Her intellectual and cultural safety is now wholly her responsibility. We’ve given her all the above-board tools, as well as some trench-fighting ones to navigate a system that is inherently anti-Black. We have to let go and trust that she’ll not freeze or fold in the face of targeted disrespect, omission, and forceful relegation to some sub-tier.

We trained her for this. And more. Our baby is a fighter.

But as sad as I am, I am filled with hope and excitement for her future. New adventures. New friends. New knowledge. A confirmation that her chosen path is her right path and that everything she’s experienced has armed her for this moment. 

We talked about her path to becoming an actor and she asked me a question, “With all the bad stuff happening in the world, is acting still okay to do?”

I explained to her that during times of crisis and upheaval, most everyone turns to some
form of art to make it through, to get by, or to experience an enhanced form of human nature, played broadly, to better understand ourselves, and our shared world. A good friend added, “Tell her that she is part of a thousands of years old tradition that was once considered a form of magic—that the actor was a translator for the Gods, they were able to travel in high and low places, connecting across class and culture and status. Tell her actors, real and true actors, are the shit and they are some of what we need, right now. We’ll always need them.”

This landed with her the way it needed to. She smiled and gave me an enormous hug.

I thought about that moment as I silently watched her finish the last few drops of her malt. I offered to take her cup and put it in the trash. She smiled and handed it over. She then expressed how excited she was to move in to the dorms and profusely thanked her mother and I for all of the things we purchased and did to ensure that her new home felt as comfortable as her forever home. We all hugged, took a family selfie in front of the frozen custard shop in an incredibly small town we’ll grow familiar with, got into our rental car and drove towards her future.

I let the tears fall.