This countdown is getting serious. She leaves in One. Week.

What do you do the last week before your last child leaves for college?

It’s busy for her as she says goodbye to her friends, packs and cleans her trash pit dumping zone room. Busy for me as I plan the send-off dinner, try to enjoy every minute with her without smothering her to death and cry. A lot.

In some ways, the anticipation has been worse than the actual event. At least it seems so now — ask me again next week after she leaves.

She’s ready.

• My dining room is full of dorm and her room is full of boxes and suitcases.
• She’s excited about the challenge and ready to prepare for her future.
• Over the weekend I got to hear her share insights on faith that were deep, thoughtful and meaningful, which gives me such peace.

I’m ready.

• Yes, it’s hard. Hard as crap. But my Daddy taught me that few worthwhile things are easy. So that means this is very worthwhile.
• I’ve got lots of exciting projects of my own to work on and that is going to be so much fun.
• I can’t wait to watch how she’s going to use her gifts, talents and passions to work for good in the world.

At this point, I’ve either prepared her for adulthood or I have failed, so, in a way, the pressure is off. Now I get to just enjoy her last week at home. And try not to cry. Much.

Yeah, right.

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.

What is the one thing you are least likely to do? Jump out of an airplane? Go camping? Run a marathon?

There is no skydive, no tent and definitely no 26.2 in my future, but if you had asked me this time last year what I’d be less likely to do than any of those … it would be get a tattoo.

So nearly a year ago, when my youngest daughter started talking about getting a tattoo for her 18th birthday, I tried to pretend I didn’t hear her. She already has about six ear piercings, so I’ve grown accustomed to her unconventional look and am far less concerned about her outer appearance that who she is on the inside. But a tattoo is so … permanent. And she’s only 18.

As I listened to her, I realized that she didn’t want it for the purpose of rebellion; she’s a lot of things, but rebellious isn’t one of them. She wasn’t interested in the impression it would make on others. She wanted a tattoo because she wanted a visible symbol of her faith in a place where she, and others, would see it every day.

So I began to warm to the idea, accept that her preferences and tastes may be just different than mine and respect the fact that her faith is something she wishes to carry with her in a visible way for the rest of her life.

Then the other shoe dropped.

“Mom,” she said. “For my 18th birthday, I want to get a tattoo and I want you to get one with me. I want it to be a mother-daughter thing. I want us to do it together.”

What? No way. You have got to be kidding.

But …

She kept asking. She was not joking.

And I realized something. This was not another hole in her ear. This was forever. Visible to all. For her, it was a profound moment. The moment she would put a symbol of her faith on her body in a way that all would see. Irrevocably. And she invited me into that moment.

One thing I’ve learned in 21 years of parenting: When your teenager asks you to be a part of a significant moment in their life, it’s a high honor, not to be taken lightly or scoffed at. So, at 51, this suburban housewife got inked.

It brings to mind this:

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.* Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:5-9 (*emphasis mine)

In ancient days, observant Jews bound what is believed to be these verses to their bodies in leather boxes called tefilin, translated into Greek as phylactery, so the idea of having a visible reminder of the faith attached to the body is not a new one. Perhaps in the same way, the dove that will now always adorn her wrist will remind her of the Holy Spirit’s constant presence in her life.

I know that the cross on my left shoulder blade, the same side of the body as my heart, will ever remind me of the sacrifice of the Cross, the grace of the Cross and the glory of the Cross.

And a sacred moment between mother and daughter that took place late at night in a funky tattoo shop in downtown Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Never say never.

What’s one thing (you think) you’ll never do?

It was a beautiful sunset — or was it a sunrise?

I watched it from our deck of my family’s house overlooking Greers Ferry Lake. Sara Ann was about to begin her senior year in high school, my last school year with a child at home. Prelude to the empty nest.

Between the uncharacteristically cool breeze, the natural beauty and the chardonnay, my mood was reflective as I thought about the beginning of the end of this part of my life. A life defined by semesters, school days, spring breaks and Christmas vacations. The end of my girls’ lives as children as they move into adulthood — college graduation and the beginning of a bright career for Elizabeth, high school graduation and off to college for Sara Ann. A beginning for me as, for the first time in 21 years, I explore my own priorities and interests apart from motherhood. The end of rules and curfews. The beginning of years of friendship with my girls.

I love pictures of sunsets. This particular sunset marked the end of an amazing day, but as sure as it set over the lake, the sun rose again on the other side of the night. When you look at the photo, unless you know the exact location and directional orientation, you don’t know whether it’s a sunrise or a sunset. So I realize it is with life — every end holds within it a new beginning and there is beauty in both.

Though I know this transition will not be easy and I approach it with mixed emotions, I cling to the idea that, for us, the sun is rising.

Photo credit: Sara Ann