By Lorry Myers
The phone would ring at the oddest times, and I knew it would be her. My youngest daughter was off at college, her first year of being away. Early in the morning when I fumbled for the phone, her breathless voice would say my name.
“Mom?”
“Hey,” I would say, and then wait for what came next.
“Is Dad there? I need to know what the weather is for today?” She would ask, her voice still heavy with sleep.
“Mariah, you are four hours away, turn on your local news!”
My daughter was used to living life with unasked weather reports and dinner at the dinner table. Her calls hinted that she missed that, but she would never say it out loud.
“Mom?” She would whisper when she called late at night and I answered the phone from my bed. “How do you make Rice Krispie treats?”
My daughter had a dream and went off to claim it, just like we planned, but still, I missed her. When your child first spread their wings and fly away, it is leaves behind a hole that’s hard to fill. At first, I would wake still believing Mariah was in her own bed, snuggled up safe in the room down the hall. There were times when I thought she would pull up in her dusty car with the windows rolled down and her hair all windblown and crazy. I would unconsciously look out the window and then the phone would ring.
“Mom?”
“Hey,” I answered, remembering again that she was gone.
“Which sounds better?” Mariah asked, busily writing a homework assignment.
Sometimes this college girl talked forever, seeming reluctant to let me go. Sometimes her calls were a single question and then she was off and running again.
Searching for the rest of her life.
For the complete column, see this week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard
