In 20 days, my youngest daughter, Sara Ann, leaves for college. It’s the most significant life change since I first became a mother in 1988. I’ve been counting down the days, not to be morbid, but because it’s easier for me to process if I’m aware of what is happening.

We spent this past weekend at my family’s lake house on Greers Ferry Lake in Arkansas — the setting for some of the best times of our lives. It was our last lake weekend before The Empty Nest and my first inclination was, don’t think think about the fact that it is the last, just enjoy the time.

Except … while thinking about it certainly brings tears, do I really want to look back on these days and remember nothing special about them? No — I want to savor every moment; I want to be fully there. Tears are a small price to pay for the memory of:

• The last dinner at the table at the lake. Steak, baked potatoes, garlic bread and peach cobbler. A nice bottle of Cabernet.
• The last day on the lake. An idyllic sunny day with a pleasant breeze, screams of joy on the inner tube and time to relax and enjoy the clear water and unspoiled beauty of the foothills of the Ozarks.
• The drawer. As we packed to leave, she showed me “her drawer” in the master bedroom. I hadn’t known about this drawer. It contains things she has kept there since she’s been old enough to open a drawer. Books, markers, hair clips, coloring books, rubber bands, some small toys, pencils. Little girl things, not college girl things.

The drawer took me back to a time when college would happen someday, not in 20 days; when many more dinners, sunny days, skinned knees, broken bones and broken hearts lie ahead.

I’ve never believed that to display emotion is to show weakness, that it’s necessary to deny what we feel in order to be strong. In my experience, it requires more strength to face that which is painful; to walk through rather than try to walk around and pretend to be unaffected.

So in 20 days, when I leave my youngest three hours away in Conway, Arkansas, I will feel it. I won’t distract myself with busyness, or try to take my mind to a happy place. I’ll curl up in a ball and cry if I need to and I’ll remember every thought, every feeling, every moment. And I know there will be a time when it hurts just a little less.

But for now, I’m going to count down the last 20 days and treasure each one. Even if it costs me a tear or two.

Greers Ferry Lake in central Arkansas is just about my favorite place on earth. The simple, unspoiled beauty of creation relaxes me in ways I cannot explain and through the years it has been the setting for some of the best of our family times; this past week was no exception. We just returned from a five-day stay there and I snapped this photo as we sat on the lake at sunset waiting for the Fourth of July fireworks display.

Friday afternoon as we were preparing to leave for a weekend at the lake, one of our upstairs toilets overflowed, which left a couple of inches of standing water in our bathroom and caused a downpour in the den below. We quickly grabbed every towel in the house to soak up the water, then threw them into a laundry basket.

I thought, no problem, we’ll just throw them in the dryer and when we get back from the lake at least they’ll be dry and won’t smell. A fine idea, except as I started the dryer it made a terrible noise and abruptly stopped, apparently due to a broken belt. With a mound of wet towels (not to mention the load that had already been in the washer) we decided to just go have a relaxing weekend and worry about it later.

Today when we returned home, we were met with the anticipated horrible smell of three-day-old wet towels but the bonus was this large branch on the driveway, which obviously fell out of the tree onto Sara Ann’s car, which we haven’t even had for a month. It left several dents, most notably this one right in front.

So now I’m washing towels that I will have to hang all over the house to let dry and hoping the bleach in the washer will kill the icky smell soon. Not to mention the carpet upstairs in our bedroom. Jim has gone to buy new towels to get us through until the dryer can be fixed.

Uh oh. The washer is making a funny sound …

I am unabashedly corny at Christmas. I like baking Christmas cookies and cutting them into shapes before decorating them with way too much red and green icing. I enjoy the old traditional Christmas carols and know almost every stanza of each one.

My favorite ornaments are the ones my daughters have made, the ones that have been given to us as gifts, and the ones that have been in my family forever (which means they are not in the best shape). My tree doesn’t have a color scheme or a theme, just a jumble of ornaments and, at the top, the angel that my parents gave us when we got married.

Last night we went to the candlelight and carol service at the church I grew up in. I still love hearing O Holy Night, and I still get a lump in my throat when I sing Silent Night in a darkened, candlelit sanctuary.I’m writing this on Christmas Eve at my Mom’s house, where my family and I are about to enjoy our traditional feast of peel & eat shrimp, various cheese balls and appetizers and a nice glass of wine.

If that’s corny, then sign me up.