When your first child is born, the thoughts of their future are really dreams, distant dreams that you can not really begin to understand; at least this is how it was for me. My son, Rio, brought such love and joy into my life from the day he was born that it was unimaginable to think of him leaving my side. He was always funny and smart, too smart or his own good sometimes. We had always talked to him about going to college, and stressed how hard he needed to work so that he could be on scholarship. Those words run through my mind on a daily basis now, eighteen years later. College was a big part of everyday conversation but the thought of him leaving, and what that would mean to me as a mom, never actually entered my mind. I think it started when Rio was in the 10th grade, the realization that one day our house would no longer be his full time home.
January of his 10th grade year, he came home from school and told us he wanted to register to take his ACT in June. At the time it really didn’t seem like a life-changing moment; so we registered and he started studying for the test. We looked for every free website we could find to help him study. He was dedicated to studying everyday; he has the ability to throw himself into whatever it is he wants to accomplish. June came and so did the test. He came out of the test unsure if he had done well. I think he was sick for the four weeks it took for him to get his results online. Everyday he would say, “I should have studied more.” We reassured him that he had done his best.
The day came that we could view his scores online; we had been waiting on this day was like waiting on the lab results from a doctor’s office. After much anticipation on all sides, we login and there it is a 30 overall. He was excited but was scared that the computer was wrong and wanted to wait until he had the paper in his hands before he would celebrate. Now, I was the one starting to feel sick, I had no idea what was about to happen, but I was sure somewhere along the line I was not going to like it. This was, after all, my baby- at least my first one. A week and a half later, the paper with the scores comes in along with mail from more places than we could have expected. I thought, “They must be joking if they think my son will leave me.” However, as we looked at every piece of mail that came in over the next two years, the realization became very overpowering. If the mail wasn’t enough, the phone calls from different schools started - strange voices on the phone began asking for Rio. This prompted long conversations about what he wanted to study and what their schools had to offer. I felt like the Martians had invaded my home and were trying to take my son with them. It wasn’t like I wasn’t incredibly proud of him or we hadn’t been preparing him for college; just my heart could not (or would not) imagine a house that did not include my first born: even though my head kept telling me that this is what he is meant to do- what he really needs to be doing.
Nearing the end of his junior year, we told him he needed to start to narrow his list down to five schools. Late that summer, we moved from rural Alabama to Gulf Breeze, Florida. We didn’t think much about how this would impact going to college, now we know. When you move from one state to another (or maybe it is just Florida because of the Bright Futures Scholarship) he became a student without a state. If he applied to a Florida college he would be considered an out-of-state resident until after his first semester, because he had not lived in Florida for 12 months; because he graduated from a Florida school, if he applied in Alabama he would still have to pay out-of-state tuition. This really didn’t help in narrowing down the colleges, but it didn’t hurt either because tuition was now about the same no matter where he went. So, he chose five schools. This was supposed to be a good thing, right? All I could do was go on the computer and map how far the schools were from the house, in hours not miles - because I needed to know how long it would take me to get there if he needed me. Not that he would need me, during his 9th grade year he went with a group from school to Chicago to compete in a choir competition. I made the mistake of telling him he didn’t have to call unless he wanted to. I got a call from the airport on the way there and on the way back.
I have never seen so many different forms or different ways to ask the same question as on scholarships. We were drowning in a sea of scholarship applications. This was like a job for both of us, we really wanted him to be able to graduate college and have little to no student loan debt. Some of them were so long it reminded me of when I enlisted in the Navy and I was looking for the phrase, “So help me God,” or the place where he signs away his first born child. These scholarships were important so we filled them out until our fingers were ready to fall off. His senior year and the summer afterward seemed to fly past like a fighter jet on its way to a mission.
Somewhere along the way, the awesome faculty and staff at Birmingham-Southern College convinced him that they really needed him to become a part of their family. Here we go, I thought with dread, he is finally leaving my home. The home we have spent so many years building with great care. We started the packing and buying for my son to move four hours away. I was somewhat okay with that distance; I could make it there and back in a day if I needed to do so. It was a cold, wet Saturday in August. He let me drive his truck because the weather was so bad. His dad and sister followed us. I knew, once I got in and shut the door, that this was it. My son, that I loved so much, would only come back to our house if he wanted to. I dreaded getting into that car when we finished unpacking his things in his dorm room. Just trying to think of what I could do to make the day last just a minute longer - because I knew if I had just one minute more, I would not cry. We started the walk back to the car and it seemed like we were running to me. I kept looking at my husband like, “Slow down, you fool.” I got in and closed my door, Rio reached over and kissed my forehead and gave me a hug. In that moment, my heart was filled with so much joy and sorrow; I thought it would pop like a balloon.
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