his only choice

/ Off Grid Islanders

This week, twenty four years after our eldest son started kindergarten, we are, for the first time, without a child in school. Three children and four degrees later they are done. 

When I informed my daughter as a twelve year old that they were all going to university, they had no choice, she responded..”what if I want to sell hotdogs on the street?” I said that would be great, follow your passion, but you are going to be an educated hot dog seller.

She changed faculties several times, universities twice and did indeed find her passion not as a hot dog seller but as a Social Worker in the Downtown Eastside. Her elder brother changed universities twice and faculties twice. He finished two degrees before finding his passion jumping out of helicopters fighting wildfires on mountainsides. Her younger brother stayed with one university and changed faculties twice. His passion is hockey but he graduated in Finance. I won’t be surprised if he ends up owning our cities NHL franchise team…

We sold the family house before it was empty and our kids moved to university dorms when they were eighteen. But today, I feel we are now officially empty nesters. We made two promises to each other when we had kids… One, no matter what we had to do, our children would get University educations and two we would sit side by side at their weddings. There had been some drama at our wedding with divorced parents and we swore we wouldn’t do that to our kids… 

The University promise is fulfilled and I am fairly confident we will be sitting side by side at any potential nuptial proceedings. We have been together all day every day since E became ill in 1999. It’s a little late in the game now to be finding someone better suited. Just in case, I dragged E out to the middle of no where in a cabin on a cliff. He thinks I wanted peace and solitude. I was actually increasing my odds for continued marital bliss.. Living here, I’m really 

his only choice

 

14 thoughts on “his only choice”

  3. A good buddy visiting us in the cabin on the cliff said, “You two are like folks who’ve been married FOREVER.” At the time we’d been married form maybe 20 years? What he later realized, visiting the island, was that we were together 24/7, so we WERE like a couple who’d been together for a Lot Of Years. And it’s been a wonderful ride. I have a feeling you are saying the same thing, Oh Ye Emptie Nesters, Ye! 🙂

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  4. A good buddy visiting us in the cabin on the cliff said, “You two are like folks who’ve been married FOREVER.” At the time we’d been married form maybe 20 years? What he later realized, visiting the island, was that we were together 24/7, so we WERE like a couple who’d been together for a Lot Of Years. And it’s been a wonderful ride. I have a feeling you are saying the same thing, Oh Ye Emptie Nesters, Ye! 🙂

    Like

    Reply

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