May 20, 2002
DOWN HOME:
Senior moments bombard ol' dad
___Joanna discovered me in the kitchen, staring at her calendar, looking dismayed.
___"You're just having a senior moment," she diagnosed, walking across the room to give me a reassuring hug. "You'll be OK. Everything will turn out just fine."
___No, I wasn't having "that" kind of senior moment. Older friends say they have senior moments when they forget things--like names of relatives or where they put their car keys.
___Around our house, senior moments occur when Jo and I realize our oldest daughter, Lindsay, isa senior, about to graduate from high school and heading off to college at the end of summer.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___I remember my first senior moment. It happened several months ago. I woke up in the middle of the night and suddenly, clearly realized that, before too long, our "baby" won't be upstairs in her bed every night, or sitting at our table evenings at dinner, or lounging on the couch when I get home from work most days. Of course, I didn't get much sleep the rest of that night.
___Now, senior moments arrive with increasing frequency. Some of them are prompted in ways you might expect--like all the end-of-senior-year functions at school and church. From prom through commencement, Lindsay will have participated in at least nine events she will have done for the last time or attended because she's graduating this year.
___But some of the most breathtaking senior moments have been hitting me when I least expect them. Like when I took her "Farmerette Captain" sign out of the front yard and hung it in the garage. (Should've seen that one coming.) Or when she makes a joke at dinner and laughs the way only she does. Or when I look across the worship center at church and see her sitting with her friends and remember a mere moment ago, when she sat by me and wanted me to point out the words in the hymnal.
___During some of these senior moments, I've tried to take comfort in the knowledge that millions of parents do this every year--that my own parents did this 27 years ago.
___That doesn't work. All the billions of times before when a child grew up and prepared to leave home, it was someone else's child leaving someone else's home. Now, it's my daughter. I miss her already, and she's not even gone.
___When I look around my office, I see nine pictures of Lindsay and her sister, Molly, snapped in almost every segment of their lives. Those photos remind me how much I've loved every phase of being their daddy. Sure, I liked being needed when they were little, but now I revel in being their friend as well as parent.
___Those pictures, as well as the sharp pain of senior moments, remind me how blessed I am to be a father. They also offer hope that, after these senior moments pass, the next phase of parenthood will be another great adventure.
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