By Jacqueline Fisch 
One, two, three, four, five, six.
This is how I know he’s in the net and the game’s about to start.
I hear the alternating sound of the stick’s shaft and paddle tapping against the worn steel bars. Each side, left and right, three times.
This sound is familiar, and doesn’t always make my eyes cloud with tears. But this time, it did.
The usually frigid ice arena is different. Normally, I’m bundled up in a parka, even when it’s 80 degrees outside, but this time, I was warm.
It was my son’s last high school hockey game.
Next season, he’ll be playing 1,300 miles away from Florida in Massachusetts, and finishing out his senior year of high school in another family’s home. A family we’ve yet to meet.
For years, I’ve witnessed the moms before me send their high school grads off to college. That time always felt so far away. Almost as if I thought he’d live upstairs forever.
He helped his team win that last high school game on home ice, with a shutout to boot.
The wins are always exciting, and I’m feeling sad and nostalgic for all the games played over the past 10 years. He started playing when he was just six, sporting skates at just 2 years old. He’s continuing with the sport, so I know I’ll get to see him play many more times. It’ll just be different. Games are usually live-streamed, so I can watch from anywhere. But there’s something comforting about home ice. Preparing a carb-heavy meal at home, marveling at his hand-eye coordination with a thud-thud-thud as he practices with racquetballs, to knowing that after the game, we’ll all go out to grab a meal, recall the highlights over root beers, and head home together.
I knew this time would come. Only it came earlier than I expected.
Now it seems my husband and I need to expedite our acceptance and emotionally prepare ourselves for his bedroom to be empty for most of the year.
But how exactly does a mom prepare to move her kid out?
Can I rehearse this?
This evening at home, following his final high school game, my husband and I changed out of our sweatshirts and jeans and lay on the bed to process.
I felt it too. I could sense the thickness in the air. What’s the name of this emotion? I can’t seem to grasp it. Is it fear? Fear of my oldest baby living away from home? Is it sadness? For missing all the big and small moments that make daily living with our kids such a tremendous joy? Or is it grief? Did we do enough as parents?
My husband and I had the same instinct—we needed to go on vacation. ASAP!
Perhaps this was the first thought because for hockey (and horseback for my daughter), most of our travel is centered around their sports schedules. We’d attempted, sometimes successfully, to turn a sports trip into a combined vacation. Packing in as much fun as possible and adding days to the trip once the events wrapped up.
I wonder why a vacation was our instinct. Perhaps because, as a 17-year-old, our son spends a lot of time in his room, and on vacation, we’d all be together more. Maybe it was so we could make more memories.
Searching back in my brain’s database, I scan my mind’s files. Did we spend enough time together as a family? Did I work too much? Were all those years I did the corporate dance of early morning school drop-offs and rushing around—was that too much? Did he have a good childhood? Did we teach him everything we’re supposed to teach him before he leaves? Is he ready for a real-world initiation?
I felt some regret for not being as patient as I’d become in more recent years. All that rushing around, and for what? If I could do it all again, I’d be more present. I would have said yes more often to building LEGOs. I would have lingered at the playground. I would have soaked up more enjoyment from reading from Dr. Seuss or Thomas the Train before bedtime.
That’s the thing. We never really know when the last bedtime story will happen, or the last time they’ll be okay with kisses and hugs before bed, or the last time they’ll wet the bed or wake you up at 5:00 a.m. because the sun’s up.
Following this last home game, I had a choice. Realizing our son was downstairs in the living room, I promptly decided that processing would be for later.
I can’t process my son moving out while he’s still here.
Every time I think about him packing his bags and heading north, my eyes sting. Sure, I’ll cry when we part ways. We’ll travel to see him play as much as we can. There won’t be any regrets from this point forward—I make this mental agreement with myself.
“I’m going to go hang with him.” I declared as I got up, blinked, and went downstairs. In the months leading up to his departure, I soaked up every minute. Savoring the time of watching almost the entire Star Wars sequence. And I do not love Star Wars. Not even a little. Watching the Stanley Cup finals, even though both our teams were already out (the Bruins and the Leafs). I didn’t hold back on my commentary of the game. The kind of comments where he reminds me, gesturing toward the TV, waving his hand around, “You know I do this.”
Right. He does do this.
And he’s heading out to chase his dream. Maybe even more nervous than me. But when I see him on TV, and hear the clink of his stick, one, two, three, four, five, six, I’ll know. He is home.
by Katy Ursta 
by Anneliese Lawton 
