If you are touched by the growth of your offspring from kids to adults, you will be touched by this piece from author Marianne Bohr. She calls it “Au Revoir, les Enfants,” but if your smattering of French makes you think she’s saying “Goodbye, kids,” you don’t know the half of it.
Expectation sometimes exceeds the event you await, but not so with our children’s arrival to visit during our year in Europe.
Marianne walking with her son in Pisa, Italy.
It was only a month-and-a-half after our dark night in the depths of la France profonde – our deep embed in France. That night was the one and only time my husband Joe and I considered abandoning our European gap year to retreat stateside. But by the time our Chris and Caroline arrived at Milan’s Malpensa airport to join us for two weeks of our expat year, we had fully recovered our enthusiasm for the journey.
Their familiar American faces leapt from the airport crowd in full color as all others blurred to gray. From the moment they bustled through the international arrivals door, all was right with our world and I could barely control my excitement. I was jelly-kneed but on my toes, ready to pounce. There’s nothing more beautiful than Caroline’s smile and hearing Chris call me his pet name: “Maman!” The four of us converged in a “family hug,” no one wanting to be the first to let go. Joe finally announced, “Guys, our Fiat awaits,” to get us moving toward the exit.
Portofino, Italy … one end of the Cinqueterre.
Caroline asked, “How much Italian have you learned?” and I reminded her, “We’ve only been in Italy for three days, mia bella!”
Chris piped in, as he always did, “When do we eat?”
Those two weeks with our children were bliss. We explored La Spezia, hiked the Cinqueterre, took silly pictures at Pisa, skied the Dolomites, and concluded our family trip in Verona. We stayed in a hotel appropriately named Giulietta e Romeo (give it a moment, you’ll figure it out), dined at a trattoria with the same name, shopped at the open-air Christmas market, and snapped pictures at the mythical home of Juliet under its romantic balcony in a cobblestone courtyard. I did my best to enjoy the time, but as our sad parting loomed, I found myself sobbing in the shower on our last night in Italy, barely managing to pull myself together and dress for dinner tear-free, not wanting to ruin our final family evening.
Beers with the grown children.
The French have it right when they kiss and say Au revoir — “Until we see each other again” — not “goodbye.” And that’s what we said to our children when they left us to go home. “We’ll see you in less than four months, Dad,” Caroline consoled Joe, but she was working as hard as he was not to cry. “Maman,” Chris said, rubbing my back, “the next time we visit, you’ll be in Paris. Just think about the meals!”
Marianne’s new book – Gap Year Girl: A Baby Boomer Adventure Across 21 Countries
– is available at Amazon.
Joe and I both nodded and tried to smile, but it was time to say, “Until we see you again.”
And so off they went, through security and to their gate, just four days before Christmas. While Chris’s film-editing work was on hiatus for the rest of December, Caroline, a neonatal intensive care nurse, had to work through the holidays; otherwise, the kids would have stayed through Christmas Day. We yearned to board the plane with them, to remain in their company and head back to our familiar United States. But we busied ourselves with our own departure details and the mechanics of getting to another terminal to catch our EasyJet flight to London. The decision to leave for England on the heels of the kids’ departure was a perfect foil for our melancholy. Distraction was a very helpful antidote.
Skiing in the Alps.
We settled in at our gate, and I did my best to lose myself in a book. But the chattering holiday travelers passing by made me feel the physical absence of the grown-up Chris and Caroline. I’d just hugged them goodbye so keenly that my face twitched and then crumbled, the tears I’d held back all day spilling over. Not only did I miss my adult children, as I realized in that moment, but I missed them as children as well. As happy as we are to see our sons and daughters grow, share the joy of their successes, help them deal with disappointment, and beam with pride as they become young adults, it’s painful to say goodbye to their youth. Sitting on a molded plastic chair at a sterile airport gate, I miss my children’s little selves — like friends I no longer saw — and I felt fleeting but unmistakable loss. I shared my thoughts with Joe and leaned my head on his shoulder. His voice thickening with sentiment. All he managed was, “I know, babe, I know.”
The announcement of our flight to London interrupted my wistful reverie. I shook off my funk and strapped on my backpack, and we were on our way — stiff upper lip and all that. It was time for new adventures sans children; we were back to being on our own, back to being just two for the road.
Thanks for an enjoyable piece. It is always such a treasure when our children and their spouses and of course, the grandchildren come to visit. We long to see them and enjoy their company and are a sad when they must leave to get back to their own lives. But after few days my wife and I again begin looking forward to and planning their next visit or ours.
I loved this piece, as it brought back memories of our trip with our college daughters to Europe. It’s a fantastic feeling to watch your children through that transition from adolescents to adults. One recommendation to all parents. I wrote heartfelt, late night letters (emails) to my daughters throughout their four years of college. It was an avenue for staying close, offering advice, and sharing more of myself. I saved those letters, bound them together. and gave them as surprise presents after graduation at Christmas. They loved them! Because of all the positive reaction from their friends and parents, a collection of some of those letters will be published in late December, titled “A Father’s Letters.” Nothing beats having your children become your best friends!
Very nice piece, Marianne. My mother, who has since passed, would tell me that no matter how old I got I would always be her little boy. I’ve got two sons of my own. Time changes little.
Nice piece. Pretty impressive ranking on Amazon too. Suerte.