My daughter — my baby, my youngest and last child to leave the nest — is being married at the end of this month.
 
She’s been out of the nest for some years, having completed college, graduate school, careers in different cities. But marriage means REALLY out of my nest. . .and into another’s.
 
I am finding this very hard to believe and much harder to accept. Yet isn’t an independent life what we all crave for our children? A life away from parents, from home and hearth? A life with a new mate, the opportunity to create her own household nest and hopefully, eventually, children? Sigh! Of course, I have wished that for all of mine, and especially this youngest of five. 
 
Still, I cannot hide the cloud of wistfulness that hangs over my head. Have I been standing on the sidelines all these years? Time has marched on, and she has grown up, from the first day of kindergarten when she shed nary a tear to first grade when she proudly walked in wearing her red patent Mary Jane’s. Then to fifth grade and her devotion to patrol duty and a gnawing fear that she was going to be late for her post (she never was) and winning a D.A.R. medal and my having to miss the ceremony because of my own teaching responsibilities (and her absolute forgiveness)...her acceptance of starting boarding school in the tenth grade hundreds of miles from home and never complaining...receiving awards at a final senior ceremony and being absent from the event (as a frantic and proud mother wondered where she could be!) It had come full circle: we were even.
 
I have watched the baby of our family blossom into a lovely, competent young woman, talented, professional, at ease in her skin and completely at home in her adopted city and state. I have no worries about her future marital bliss. She is deeply in love and deserving of this young man who reciprocates her love.
 
Worry? Of course!
 
Will she settle into the role of housewife as easily as she has settled into the role of reporter? Can balancing the budget come as naturally as balancing the grocery shopping? Where will she pick up all the minutiae of housecleaning that I learned at my mother’s knee? Little hints such as adding a drop of vinegar to boiling water when poaching eggs or using hot water and ammonia to keep a sink drain running freely. Who am I kidding? This bride will pick up the phone if she has any questions or, more than likely, e-mail me or her sister, or both. My worries vanish as I recognize we are living in far different times than when I was first married. Nowadays both partners share equally in all responsibilities: fiscal partners, household partners, dishwashing partners.
 
My daughter’s home (not the rented apartment where her parents began married life) will be wired for every convenience: computer, color printer, wide-screen TV, intercom, security, and all the other bells and whistles obligatory for the new homeowner. The kitchen will be equipped with blender, electric can opener, food processor, and, most likely, a dishwasher. The pantry will hold furniture wipes, floor wipes, cleaning wipes of every description. Not a dust cloth in sight. And certainly no mop. The swifter picker-upper has supplanted mops in millions of homes, mine included. 
 
Married life in 2003 will be different for this child of mine and yet the basics never change. Honesty between mates, free discussion on every topic, mutual decisions on the big issues, never going to bed mad at one another. And lots of laughs. Don’t save good humor for the summertime ice cream truck.
Happy Wedding, dear daughter of mine! “Remember to honor this gracious fit.”
 
Will you forgive me if I shed a tear or two?

Barbara Dickinson is a Roanoke- based novelist and freelance writer.

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