The End of Summers

"Only kids get summer vacation?" one of our children marveled years ago when they realized our jobs extended beyond June.  

Now I can tell them that summer vacation exists, even in adulthood.

When my children were barely seven years old my wife proposed sending them away to camp, I was not a fan.  After all, I had done the math.

If we followed her sleep-away camp scheme, we’d lose almost a full year of growing-up time.

A seven-year camp lifespan times seven weeks, that's 49 weeks of no kids.

"We only have them for 18 years," I pleaded.  "Why give away a year of it?"

I soon learned we were not giving them away as much as bribing someone to take them to a land of lakes, mosquitoes, bunks and friendship.

Once the inevitable happened and I lost the argument I told myself there was value for the children in shipping them off.  What I failed to grasp was the value for the adults.

With the children staggered in age we only lost one the first year, then another, and soon we were staring down the barrel of seven weeks of undiluted childlessness.  

A thought scarier than sending them in the first place.

There was trepidation as we packed everyone off with last minute checklists, snacks for the flight, runs to the local airports, final day tantrums, misplaced articles of clothing and then -- all was quiet.

Walking through the door that first evening I was transported to my grandparents' home, a place where lights remained off in the mostly empty rooms, un-dented couch cushions, entire carpeted rooms with nary a footprint.  

On the dining room table sat two glasses of wine, a  bowl of vegetables, two lonely plates and a piece of tin foil that housed two sad little pieces of grilled fish.

What was this minimalist, vegetarian spread?

"I didn't want to waste a serving piece," my wife said.  "It's only us."

There would be no more meals at home.  

This was our introduction to the joys of adult summer vacations.  We discovered a world of late liquid dinners, trips to the beach and middle-of-the-week movies.  We reveled in the guilty pleasure of completing long-delayed projects or reading a book.  And we were not alone.  Friends who rarely left the confines of Montgomery County were suddenly never home, everybody wanted to stretch.

Even the interruption of visiting day brought new joy as the heart actually grew fonder over the missing month.

That was 6 years ago.  

Now we are on the other side.

This year we got barely two weeks of kid-free time.  Summer jobs, high school sports, teen tours and college visits overlap for short periods.  Our endless summer was reduced to one night in Naples Maine, before rushing to pick up another child in another city. 

The trumpet blew at this year's camp visiting day, signalling the end.  The sound kicks off a Pavlovian reaction of tears, hugs and clinging children.  This year the tears were ours. Summers are coming to an end.