The chair across from me stayed empty

Dear Delyara, My daughter moved into her college dorm yesterday. Today, I made dinner for three out of habit. I set three plates on the table, poured three glasses of water, and called upstairs before remembering there was no one in her bedroom. My husband quietly removed the extra plate. I put it back. We ate with her chair empty between us. She is only forty minutes away. She is healthy, excited, and exactly where she worked so hard to be. This is not a tragedy. I understand that. But after dinner I went into her room and found one earring on the carpet, the cheap silver star she wore through most of high school. I sat on her bed holding it and cried harder than I did when we left the campus. The room still looks like her, but none of the objects need me now. I spent eighteen years teaching her how to leave safely. Nobody taught me how to stay behind without feeling abandoned by the success of my own motherhood.