Last weekend I drove down to New Mexico to pick up Raphael from camp. Thank God, camp is over for another year, and everyone is home now. That trip is brutal, especially when you drive there and back in one day, like I usually do. 

On this last trip, Tre came along to help me with the driving and to see his friends at camp. It was really nice having him along, even though he plays music at entirely unreasonable decibels. At one point I was silently weathering all the noise in the passenger seat when a song I actually know came on. I perked up and listened for a moment to the lyrics.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go

"Is this Green Day?" I asked. He nodded, mildly impressed. Psssht. Song's nearly as old as he is. Good Riddence, I think it's called. Doesn't sound to me like an unaffectionate sendoff.

So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf of good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right. 
I hope you had the time of your life. 

Of course this is exactly where my mind is these days. Tre is not going to Turkey this year, it turns out, but he is off to Arizona in just a few weeks. Today is his 19th birthday, a number that takes my breath away. 

I keep remembering when I was pregnant with him. He was…an unexpected blessing, and I was terrified. I remember coming home from my baby shower, sitting in my living room and staring at my new baby swing. This is really happening, I thought, this baby is really coming to live here. And it's bringing FURNITURE. 

And then I cried some more.

I'm glad I didn't know then how fast it would go. It's for the best that I didn't realize how soon I would be loading furniture into a van and driving him to his new home. If I'd realized how soon these years would be over and how much I would miss him, well. I don't think I would have ever stopped crying.

Last week the kids and I went to the zoo. We have always gone to the zoo, and I could hardly see the exhibits before me, for the layered scenes of years past. Here's the prehistoric looking turtle, floating in murky water. I believe that for each of the past 19 years at least one of my children has left a handprint on that glass, leaned in to watch it propel itself lazily past. Here's the gorilla statue that all of my children have climbed on as babies. I swear I can see all of them, shadows hanging off the bronze gorilla, like some multi-species version of a storyteller doll.

When that song came on in the car, on the way to New Mexico, it didn't take very many lines to start me crying. Tre glanced at me, then shook his head.

"Are you crying? REALLY?"

Ah, my boy. Some things change…

…while some things never do.