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.

My youngest child can now:

1. Vote,
2. Buy cigarettes,
3. Get a tattoo,
4. Sign a lease,
5. Get married,
6. Join the military,
7. Be prosecuted as an adult.

I hope she does 1 and 5 (but let’s wait a few years for 5), 3 is coming soon, I figure she’ll do 4 in a year or so and hope she’ll never do 2, 6 or 7.

My oldest child graduates from college tomorrow.

I can hope, pray and plead, but the decisions are now theirs. I can influence, advise and guide, but I can no longer control.

A few weeks ago, around the time of her 18th birthday, Sara Ann placed these things on my kitchen table. No more denial about this graduation thing. It is going to happen. It’s now three months and a few days until we move her into the dorm at Hendrix on August 17. Until my life changes more drastically than it has since September 20, 1988, when I became a mom for the first time.

One of my favorite songs, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, by George Harrison, has a line that says,

“with every mistake, we must surely be learning …”

I think that sums up parenting pretty well. And I’ve made my share of mistakes.

What have I learned? I’ve learned that many of the things that I thought were Really Big Things are really … not. Such as:

• Potty training Really, we make this so much harder than it needs to be. Early potty training does not equal higher intelligence. No toddler who doesn’t want to use the potty is going to do it consistently for little pieces of cereal. I promise by the time they hit puberty, you will have forgotten about the potty.
• How clean/messy they keep their room When they go to college and get a room of their own, they will either do better at it or learn to live as a slob.
• Grades in middle school Middle school demands that a family shift into survival mode. It’s the bridge between elementary school playmates with squeaky voices and classmates with facial hair and raging hormones. Boys are icky vs. Ohhhh, he is hott*. It’s a time of transition: socially, academically, emotionally and physically. More than anything, they need a safe environment, free from undue pressure.
• What they wear Beyond basic decency and modesty, let them express themselves freely. My two girls’ styles are as different as night and day; one can spend an entire day in stilettos on concrete and the other is all about Tom’s and Chacos. And both are absolutely beautiful in their own way. Their style is not an expression of you and it’s not their job to impress your friends with how nice they look.
• Shaving I’m speaking about girls here; I know next-to-nothing about boys and shaving. Let them shave when they want to shave. The main thing about shaving is talking about it. I shaved, I need to shave, Omigosh it’s been a week since I shaved! This is just not important enough to let them feel excluded about. It’s hair. Let it go.

The most important thing I have learned in 21 years of parenting is savor every moment. From the first step to the first date, there is joy in every milestone. Take a million pictures, even when it seems silly. You’ll be glad when you look back at them and you won’t remember how much they complained.

Be there with your whole heart. Shop for school supplies and prom dresses. Be the one who always drives them places and listen to them laugh with their friends. Let them mess up your house and stay up all night, even if they keep you awake. Watch them fall in love and hold them when their tender heart breaks for the first time.

Welcome each new phase; in every change is a glimpse of the adult that you’ll someday know as friend rather than child. The one who just might give you grandchildren.

*This is not a typo; two ts means he/she is really hot. Which is just like cute, but scarier.

What phases do you look forward to? Dread?

I turned 51 a couple of weeks ago. I like birthdays. And no cancer survivor in their right mind complains about getting another year older.

It’s kind of like a lopsided baseball game — even though the winning team is far ahead, they still try to cross home plate one more time. You can certainly win the game without the insurance runs, but they do make the victory a little more secure. At 51, I’m 11 runs ahead, which is a pretty nice lead.

A few random birthday reflections:

• My family doesn’t even try to put all those candles on my birthday cake anymore; i just get the big number candles. I think they believe it would be dangerous otherwise.
• It’s fun to watch my younger friends freak out when I tell them I finished my masters degree before they were born.
• It’s cool to see the look of surprise when younger people realize I know how to work a computer and can type a text message just as fast as they can.
• It’s good to have an excuse for being absent-minded and scatterbrained, which I’ve always been anyway. Now I can just remind people that I’m old. My kids buy it completely and leave me alone about the forgetfulness.
• Every year is better than the last. The body may be falling apart, but my mind is full of the kind of lessons you only learn from experience. When I can remember them. See above.

I have a great life and am grateful for each and every one of these years. I love having adult and almost-adult children, especially when they turn out to be people you’d spend time with anyway. Marriage is better after 23 years than after one — anyone can be married for a year; 23 is a grand slam — and I’ve always wanted to hit one of those.

Note: I do know that baseball season is over. It’s the only sport I know enough about to make an analogy. And it’s only a few months until spring training starts.