This Empty Nest is for the Birds

This time of the year is difficult for many families, as the fall semester approaches and it’s time to send children away to college.

I liken it to a weird cocktail – one shot of anxiety, one shot of happiness, a muddled heart, and a dash of pride, served over ice cold reality. The hangover lasts longer than a day and Tylenol doesn’t help.

After doing this twice, I figured it would become easier. It has not.

When we dropped off my oldest son, Mike, we were still so busy that it did not seem too bad. He made the travel football team as a freshman, and we began four wonderful years of tailgating at Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

At home, our middle son, Nick, was still in high school playing football and our youngest, Dan, had just started sports himself. Plus, I was coaching football and baseball, so we always had a game or practice somewhere.

When it was Nick’s turn, he chose Carroll University also. Two kids, one college, and one college football team. Pretty darn cool. That left Dan as the only child in the house. Except he was rarely the only child in the house. Friends and teammates were always shooting basketballs, jumping on the trampoline, throwing footballs, raiding the fridge, and laughing and wrestling in the basement. There was commotion. It would get really loud.

Time went by, Mike got married, and both he and Nick wound up living in Wisconsin. Dan’s senior year of high school flew by. The basement got louder, girls got mixed in, and they still laughed like they did when they were ten years old.

Football went well for Dan, and he was offered a roster spot at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. The summer was spent at graduation parties, our annual trip to the North Woods and there was a lot to do. We were busy, and subconsciously ignoring his impending departure time.

Then the day came, way too soon, when we had to drop him off. The fact that this was not our first time got its butt kicked by the sadness of realizing it was our last time. Our baby was leaving. We are now empty nesters.

The house is a kind of quiet that we haven’t heard in 28 years. The basement is frowning, and the X-Box is gone. The basketball net is blowing in the wind. I can’t hear rap music that I can’t stand to hear. The dinner table has reservations for 6, but only two show up. Someone pick up a lonely football and pet it.

Peace and quiet? Feel free to shove it. I want to play catch with my boys; push them on the old tire swing; play hockey in the basement and full-contact Risk in the kitchen, knowing that none of us would ever quit no matter how long we had been at it; watch the Cubs and Bears, NYPD Blue, Prison Break, The Office, Sons of Anarchy, and the Walking Dead with them.

I want to see my wife kiss them on the cheek whenever they leave and hear that reassuring sound of the garage door opening when they come home. I want that house (and heart) -is-full feeling when there is a Bertok boy in every bedroom at night.

But for us and parents everywhere, those days come to an end. We swallow hard, grip memories with white knuckles and ask, “now what?” Well, some grandkids, a lake house in Wisconsin, and a national championship at Whitewater would be nice. However, right now, nothing sounds better than a game of wiffle ball in the backyard. I’ll pitch, boys.

This column originally appeared in the Times, a Shaw publication.