Where were you the night it happened?

Where were you the night it happened? The night I finally let you go? I want to know if you felt me release you and if it was painful. I yearn to hear that something struck you at that moment; something to make you know it would be different now.

I speak into the darkness, asking questions you will never hear and wondering about answers you will never give. You are too young; off on new adventures and brimming with hope. Your door is opening as mine is closing. For 18 years, you were mine: mine to take care of, to nurture and to teach. I felt pain when you suffered and cried for joy when you won. Always knowing that my job was to make you independent and to push you onto your own, I never realized that it would happen so quickly and that it would be so painful.

Now I have let you go. It was a Tuesday evening in June, not too warm with a nice breeze coming through our windows. The windows you and I looked out of every morning to greet the day and every evening to check out the moon. I cannot bear to get close to those windows without you next to me. It strikes me that we are separate and I have no choice but to accept it.

There is not thunder strike marking the end of my hold on you and .there is no bright light symbolizing your independence. No one feels or sees anything different at our house. Only I have this emptiness. Are you feeling it as well? Where are you now and where will you be my son?