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From The Editor
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A Father’s Empty Nest
The Dictionary of Letting Go
By Rob Okun
My youngest child has
left for college.
That stark truth continues
to reverberate.
For more than two
decades I’ve lived at the hub of a rollicking
adventure, a world centered around
children in a one-size-does-not-fit-all,
vibrant, at times zany, loving family.
Having children has shaped me, is an
essential part of who I am. Now, with
Jonah gone, I am facing a mountain of
feelings as emptiness and possibility vie
for my attention.
For years I loved the ritual of school
mornings—rousing Jonah and his siblings
on those days they were slow to
get up. I continued to make brown
bag lunches for him all through high
school—not because he couldn’t make
his own (he sometimes did), but because
making them brought me pleasure; it
was a small but significant part of my
definition of fatherhood.
Shouldn’t I have been more prepared
for this moment? After all, three older
sisters preceded Jonah out the door. But
he is the youngest and we are the only
males in our household. The father-sonness
of the situation has only accentuated
my feelings, a mixture of loss and
excitement I know we’re both experiencing—even
if I’m feeling more loss and he
more excitement. In my head I know the
emphasis will change, but right now it’s
my heart I’m contending with.
For many men, fatherhood is the key
portal into self-examination, an exploration
of who we are and what we believe.
Fatherhood raises the stakes around personal
responsibility and accountability.
It motivated me to begin examining my
shortcomings in ways other passages
have only hinted at. Along the way, I
made mistakes. I wish I could go back
and correct those moments when I let
Jonah—and myself—down. I wish now
Amy Kahn
“ With Jonah off to
college, I am facing
a mountain of feelings
as emptiness
and possibility vie
for my attention.”
Rob and his son Jonah.
that I had shared some parts of myself
with him sooner and gone deeper. I
know I acted overprotectively at times,
mistrusting his process of maturation.
But the discomfort accompanying
these reflections isn’t all bad. We
have a lot of years before us as Jonah
grows more into manhood and I grow
older standing beside him. Brushing
up against this tug of loss is also a feeling
of possibility: of what’s next for me
as space opens up in my life, space I
haven’t felt for a long time.
On college move-in day, I carry load
after load of Jonah’s gear up three flights
of stairs (asking myself why none of my
children ever got first-floor dorm rooms).
I am sweaty, heart pumping, feeling alive
and useful. With his permission, I put
Jonah’s clothes away in the dresser and
closet, a comforting, familiar act. But
even as my hands, out of years of habit,
effortlessly fold and arrange T-shirts and
socks, I feel a queasiness from my heart
up to my throat. My eyes tear up. Sad?
Sure. Scared? You bet. Proud? That, too.
It would have been quintessentially
male to have tried to ignore the feeling
of freefall I was experiencing, to not pay
attention to wondering what Jonah’s and
my relationship would be like now. The
old familiar part of my life as a father
wanted things to remain as they once
had been—finding a hook to hang his
clock, a place for the laundry basket.
But I know that cannot be and my heart
aches. The rituals of father and son we
long enjoyed—from playing catch to
making pizza—are not gone forever, but
they’ll never be the same. I mourn that
loss as I marvel at the young man before
me, half a head taller than me, the dark
stubble on his chin as clearly noticeable
as the new confidence in his stride.
I love my son in a way that says something
to me about manhood I haven’t
ever tried to explain before. It’s a gritty
and tender love, a mix of feelings I’ve
been experiencing with Jonah his whole
life: gentleness and fierceness; humor
and quiet; understanding and distance.
Driving home later, I see through the
tears that inexplicably feel so good running
down my cheeks what a gift Jonah
has given me. In bringing my last child
to college I’ve picked up a few new
words in the father-son dictionary of letting
go, one we’ve been learning from for
18 years. Under “empty nest” the citation
now reads “fullness of heart.” VM
Voice Male editor Rob Okun can be reached
at raokun@mrcforchange.org.