One Final Autumn: A RetrospectiveBy Fred NatividadThe sound of trees in the neighborhood rustling to the rhythm of cool breezes of dying summer became more pronounced. Red, brown, and yellow leaves fluttered in slow abandon as they fell to the ground.
It was time for college again.
The boys - with their mother and her credit card - had done their final shopping. They bought enough new jeans and shirts and music tapes and whatever else. They did not buy any school supplies because they said they would buy what they would need at campus stores.
And so it was time - the annual trip 130 miles south of Winfield into deep corn and soybean country in the middle of which is the sprawling campus the University of Illinois straddling the twin towns of Urbana and Champaign.
The sound of trees in the neighborhood rustling to the rhythm of cool breezes of dying summer became more pronounced. Red, brown, and yellow leaves fluttered in slow abandon as they fell to the ground. It was time for college again...And so it was time - the annual trip 130 miles south of Winfield into deep corn and soybean country in the middle of which is the sprawling campus the University of Illinois straddling the twin towns of Urbana and Champaign.
IMAGE CREDIT: VISIT THE USA.COM FOR REPRESENTATION USE ONLYChampaign, Illinois - Smart college town
I had to give it to the boys. They were able to cram the motor home that served as their hauling truck with incredible mountains of their stuff. Pots. Pans. A dorm fridge. A guitar. A boom box. Pair after pair of jeans. Sneakers. Jackets and sweaters with the orange logos of the University of Illinois. A typewriter. A computer...
And, yes, books. But not the kind of books of their academic disciplines.
I don’t remember which of the boys volunteered to drive first. He nosed the groaning motor home out of the subdivision towards the country road that will lead to the ramp of the highway that will touch the outskirts of Champaign 130 miles down. They took turns driving and they talked ceaselessly while munching potato chips and slurping pop. They didn’t seem sentimental about the fact that this was their last trip to Champaign. This was their senior year.
The first thing Kikay did when we arrived at the dorm was to come up to their prearranged room. A Catholic outfit runs the dorm. Their room was already clean but Kikay, the perennial mother and housewife, insisted on dusting things before we brought up the stuff from the motor home. She insisted on arranging things in the room even if I told her that the boys will rearrange things their way anyway after we leave.
Then off we went to some Chinese restaurant for lunch, after which we drove the boys back to their dorm. We tarried as long as we could. Then it was really time for us to go home. The boys didn’t seem to have any intention of hugging their mother goodbye. But Kikay did not feel any affront. She went to hug them with all kinds of trite advice that they have heard a thousand times. I went and waited in the motorhome dreading the prospect of a three-hour drive back to Winfield without the boys taking turns at the wheel.
Dark came early, so it seemed, when we reached the house in Winfield. It was not a big house - it had only four bedrooms and its total square footage was only about 2,400. Yet it seemed so large when, as we entered, we switched the lights on. It was so empty. There were no college boys sprawled lazily in the living room watching some football game or some comedic sitcom.
Kikay quietly heated up some leftovers for our dinner. We ate in deafening silence. Our two boys were not around. For all we know at that very moment they were out at some college joint having some fun - or what to them was fun.
After dinner I opened my second can of beer and tried to watch TV in the living room. Kikay went upstairs. My mind, strangely, was not on the TV show that was on. I don’t remember if it was a game show, or a comedy sitcom or a newscast.
Then I realized that Kikay was unusually quiet. Normally I could hear her nagging me about how loud the TV is. Or I could hear her tinkering with her pots and pans in the kitchen or stacking plates after removing them from the dishwasher. Perhaps she was doing her rosary beads but she usually did that before going to bed.
I went upstairs to find her leaning by the doorway of one bedroom staring intently at an empty bed. She was sobbing quietly. When I came up behind her she turned to face me and she led me wordlessly to the other room. Both rooms, of course, were empty. The beds were still unmade from last night.
Two semesters went fast. The boys graduated and they came home. But they did not come home in the context of really coming home. They merely came to use their beds as a way station on their way to strike on their own. They were always out. And then they left for good.
So it came to pass that we had to sell the house simply because it was too empty.
Every now and then we think of that autumn evening when Kikay and I stared at their empty, unmade beds in Winfield. We can’t forget the last time the boys slept in their beds with any feeling of home.
It was our last autumn as a family.
@ Fred Natividad
Livonia, Michigan
Revised August 29, 2010
