Sarah packed for her month away without any assistance from me; in fact, she preferred that I not offer any opinions unless she asked. But Sarah is not unkind about growing up, so she did allow me to sit on her bed, as she had sat on mine, back in the day. I made a conscious effort not to give her something to put in her suitcase, to rise above magical thinking—and in the end I failed, sort of. I gave her a little leather horse on a key chain, a little horse emblematic of a couple of favorite family trips, but I dignified it by pointing out that she needed a key chain for her room key and the main key to the dorm. This was no mere totem. This was something a young woman could use.

If she saw right through me, she let it go. We got all the way to our destination before she suddenly realized that the one thing she absolutely needed and did not have was a summer-weight cardigan exactly like the one I had happened to pack for myself. I transferred it from my suitcase to hers without complaint. I like to think she took it not just because she was afraid her shoulders might be cold.

A few days before Sarah was supposed to come home, she called to say that her throat hurt, so she was going to sleep for the afternoon, because the next day was full of wonderful events she could not possibly miss. It was a half-and-half call: the little girl who wanted her mom to make the sore throat go away, and the busy young woman who had to get over it fast so that she could get back to her life. We went through the regimen—liquids, rest, compulsive hand-washing—and then we got to the truth.

“I really want to see you and Daddy, and you know I miss you,” she began, “but I wish this could go on for another month.”

There it was: If she had the choice, she would have stayed away a while longer, which did not mean that she no longer cared about us. It took me a moment to find my breath.

“Somebody asked me if you were having a good time,” I said, “and I told her that if you could find a way to stay in the dorm room and start your freshman year in the fall, you’d do it. And that would be okay with Daddy and me.”

I could not believe that I had said such a thing. I could not believe that I meant it, but in fact, I did. This was startling to me. Faced with a truly happy child, my complaints vanished. Faced with a truly happy child, I could not mention such pinched and irremediable concerns as missing her, as wishing that time would stand still, as wanting just for a moment to have a toddler in my arms.

I can’t hang on to it; blithe will not be a word anyone uses to describe me once Sarah goes to college. I will tuck a memento into her freshman suitcase, knowing that it will not bring her back the way we used to count on. I’m sure I’ll call too often, I’ll send an e mail for no good reason, I will find compellingly irrelevant excuses to visit, and sometimes I will be hurt if she’s too busy to talk. I will feel all the things I felt in miniature this past summer: lost, lonely, old, irrelevant; and, yes, capable, rested, focused, and occasionally even well groomed. It was, and it will be, intolerable and appropriate. Painful and a vicarious thrill. Heartbreaking and elating. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function,” in which case I am in the midst of a very smart season.

People don’t usually quote the next sentence: “One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” We cannot hold Sarah back, and who would want to? Sarah leaving is a work in progress—and leaving really is the wrong word, since it implies an absolute state, either here or gone, and she is not that. She will never be gone, no matter where she is, because feelings, because family, survive circumstance. The tree in the forest resounds without witness—and Sarah is our girl, always. That is our “otherwise”: If I pay attention to it, I might be able to put the sad moments in their place, and to be glad that my happy child wants to stay at the party, whatever that party is, for just a little while longer.

Love like this requires faith. I will have to work hard to remember what Sarah insists is true: Some things, she says, just are.

Excerpted from “The Empty Nest” edited by Karen Stabiner. Copyright 2007 Karen Stabiner. All rights reserved. Published by Voice.

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