Years ago, as we prepared to send our oldest child off to college, a friend with older children told me, “Your kids prepare you for the empty nest.”
I didn’t believe him then, but here I am hours after we moved our youngest into his college dormitory and those words ring true.
That’s not to say we won’t miss our son in the coming days, weeks and months, for we surely will, but I do think he prepared us over the past year or so for what awaits starting this week.