Last month, Mathaus and I traveled to Dayton, TN, to attend Bryan College‘s open house for homeschoolers.
It’s the first college he’s shown an interest in, and I can’t blame him. They have exactly what he wants: a good film school on a small campus not too far from home.
And it’s in a very pretty location. We both kept talking about how a good fall of snow was likely to make the place even prettier, and how much fun that might be during the winter months.
While there, we had the chance to eavesdrop on an actual class, meet with students and professors in the film department, talk to financial aid folks, even have lunch in the cafeteria (my, how college food has changed since I was in school!).
It was a great day, and an incredible opportunity to get a feel for what attending school there might be like.
But it was also full of the nostalgia you’d expect when a parent begins to physically prepare their teenager for the next part of their life: the coming of adulthood. And I don’t think that was lost on Mathaus, either.
A junior this year, Mathaus still has plenty of high school left. But you could see in his face that he knows the time left is less than the time past.
Perhaps it’ll be easier for Mathaus because he’s not the first to live away from us, but in reality Mathaus will be the first of our children to leave the home and attend a 4-year college.
As parents, we know that life happens, whether you want it to or not, but when you’re standing on the campus of the place your son might call home for four years, it’s an eye opener.
I know that in some ways — many ways — Mathaus is ready for that step, even excited about it. But I think even he would admit that crossing the line into college is a point of no return from your childhood. There is definitely loss with that.
Mathaus believes strongly that God is calling him to work in film, and we equally agree. But on this day, for the first time, I couldn’t see his future—an acknowledgment that everything I might want for him may not be what he wants, let alone what God wants.
I don’t think he could see his long-term future in that moment either, realizing that God is the one ultimately in control, and it’s His hand that guides us each moment.
It’s a lesson we all learn, and sometimes learn over and over again. It wasn’t my first reminder, and while it might have been Mathaus’, it won’t be his last.
Driving home, we talked, laughed, and fiddled with the free satellite radio (nonstop Pearl Jam radio? No, thanks…) in the rental car, as we returned to our house, our family, our current reality.
But another trip in less than two years certainly looks to be on the horizon. It’s very likely this wasn’t my last trip to Dayton. Nor probably the last for Mathaus.