As your children all leave and start their work, their lives, away from home, you’ll, surely, feel, that empty nest “attacking” you all right! Translated…
With the trends in reproduction of the country, the different eras had the different patterns. From the sixties, “two children are just right, one is enough”, to the nineties’ “two children just right, three is not too many”, to now, the reduction of birthrate, becoming, a matter of, national security, to help change the negative birthrates, the government started handing out the money for reproducing more children, and the grandparents are ever more, blissful about it!
In my era, three children are the prerequisites. Complying with my schooling careers, my eldest and youngest are nine years apart. And, there was a stage when all three of my kids studied in the same school, last year of middle school, fifth grade, and kindergarten, and the laundry in my washer, and hung on the lanai, are the same uniforms, the same colored socks, and on the parent-teacher conference days, I’d needed to, make it to all three. My friend told, “that’s very good, you can delay your empty nest!”, and yet, no matter how hard I’d tried delaying, it’s still here.
By mid-last year, my eldest son told me that at the end of the year he was on rotation to Hsinchu, that in his leisure, he could accompany grandmother who’s staying with his uncle, and my youngest son told that he was interning in the south at the start of the new semester, and, coincidentally, my two sons left on the same month, and suddenly, I’d felt, that there’s, just my husband and I, staring at, one another.
like this???
On the weekends, my husband drove out, and, drove down to visit mom, and, as he’d gotten off the freeway, he’d, turned to go to my son’s dorm, gotten the keys to the door, dropped off the months’ worth of necessities for him, then, we’d gone to, my youngest brother-in-law’s home. Grandma was so elated that her grandson was on shift at a nearby hospital, stated to him, “Don’t forget, to come to supper after your shifts!”
On the way home, my grandson Yoyo found that his eldest uncle wasn’t with us, he looked doubtful, and I can only tell him, “your uncle is working here, this time he won’t come home with us!”, Yoyo told, “if uncle doesn’t come home I can’t find him, I’m so sad, wah………”, but quickly, he’d switched his thoughts, “then how about youngest uncle? Can he, play with me then?”, and I can only tell him, “your youngest uncle isn’t at home either.” As we returned home, he’d posted several crying face emoticon, to show how lost he’d felt, my daughter replied kindly, “Then, why not allow Yoyo to stay with you guys for a month!”, just as well then, let my grandson, fill up my empty nest.
And so, this is suddenly, as the kids all left the house, and, everything suddenly, calms down, there’s, NO more noises, no more raucous, and you’d, felt loss, because your children are, all grown up, and left the nest…