Why must you go and make this decision alone?

Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam) has haunted me through the seasons, but mainly in autumn. 

Eleven years ago, I saw elder daughter off to university and his song "Oh, Very Young" nearly did me in.

Later, as school became more of a trial to younger daughter, "Don't Be Shy", the song that opens the film Harold and Maude, became my prayer for her.

One year ago in early October, after nearly six months of sheltering with us from the pandemic, elder daughter left Victoria, stopped in Ottawa at a friend's empty condo to pick up her things, then flew to England.  She had given notice on her Ottawa job a few days after the death of the Accent Snob in October 2019, planning to fly to the United Kingdom the following spring, in pursuit of a long-cherished dream: to live and work in London.

Then the pandemic hit, and she came to us instead.  Not so secretly, I was thrilled to have my family members close and safe.

Elder daughter, however, was itching to go.  She continued to work online at her own job, after negotiating a contract, but, as the months passed, she wanted desperately to make the break for which she'd planned and planned, especially as her work visa for the UK was sifting away like sand in an hourglass.

Finally, unable to bear it, she purchased plane tickets.

The morning of her departure, I awoke at 2:40 am, when the Resident Fan Boy and elder daughter had been up for about forty minutes.  I lay quietly until 3:15 am, remembering the long-ago October crack of dawn, when my father departed for the final time.  I had written a tearfully detailed entry in my diary, then, not much later, meticulously blocked and blotted out every line, unable to bear having the record of my preteen grief.

Back in the present, I rose and cleaned myself up a little bit, putting in eye drops, then carefully drying, lest elder daughter think I'd been weeping.

I found her perched tensely on "her" end of the couch, claimed during her not-quite-six-month stay with us.

"Dad," she murmured.  "Please call the cab."

The Resident Fan Boy returned shortly after 5 am.  COVID protocols had barred him from waiting at the airport.  He curled up on the bed and wept heartbrokenly.

I rose and headed for the coffee shop, feeling as if the earth was pushing back on the soles of my feet, and I just had enough strength to push back.

I sat at the table, looking out at the sun beginning to hit the tops of the trees, and Cat Stevens pounced, with a song I've heard for years, with lyrics that now stuck into me like nails.

And, finally, I began to weep.

But, you know, I've been a mother for a while now.  I can weep silently, my body still.

Nobody noticed.

I always thought I liked October.  Maybe stuff like this would be worse in an unkinder month.