Same Day (Prologue)

My baby girl has officially moved out.
My youngest, my daughter Amy goes to college at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga in Southern Tennessee. At the end of this past Spring Semester, she expressed the desire to live in an apartment off-campus as opposed to coming home for the summer. We told her that what she was talking about was essentially moving away from home permanently, since the ground rules had been strictly established that Mom and Dad only support you during the school year.

She was aware of that, but she said she was ready to make that step. She had already gotten a job at the Tennessee Aquarium (a great attraction to visit if you're ever down this way), and that she wanted to make a go of it.

Okay, we thought. She's always been a responsible kid. There's no reason for her to hang out here all summer when she doesn't want to. Besides, we could actually use the opportunity to do something we'd been saving for years to do: upgrade the living room, namely, our circa 1980 sofa.

So we went ahead and bought a great-looking new sofa-sectional a couple weeks ago and set the old sofa aside, making plans to rent a truck and haul it down to Amy, along with her dresser from home and a number of her other small pieces of furniture and belongings.

So yesterday I rented the truck and had my son Shawn help me load it up. It was sad, thinking that this was in effect the end of her childhood, so my mood was somber as I embarked upon the two and a half-hour dive down I-24. I spent the time reflecting on her life, our sometimes stormy relationship as father and daughter, and how proud I was of the person she had grown up to become.

A lot of things raced through my mind. It's funny how random thoughts pop in and out. I thought of a kind of fun way to tell her how much I loved her and how much she meant to me, when something as random as a movie scene flashed across my brain.


Next: City Slickers