There's nothing good about saying bye

I wake up this morning with dread churning in the gut. The mind pings back and forth in emotional upheaval.
Our oldest daughter is returning to college.
Sure, I should have gotten used to this. She was gone all last year, coming home only for holidays and the summer break.
But, here we are again, saying good-bye and sending her off for what seems like forever — to a first apartment. This means she will stay there next summer.
It is so final. So ending. So done. Nineteen years together and that's it. From this point on, she will only visit, not live here.
At the same time, on the other end of life's spectrum, there is my 86-year-old father, coping with the inhumanity and unfairness of aging. Worn out body parts. Forgetfulness. Falls.
There again, is the finality. A winding down of what has been.
And, with both the 19-year-old and the 86-year-old, there lies a huge, roiling vat of uncertainty. What will they do? How will they cope? Will they be safe?
Letting go means worrying every time the phone rings or every time it doesn't.
I tell each one about the need to — please — think things through. Make good choices. Be aware of unintended consequences.
Neither one has a convincing, solid grasp of common sense — she hasn't gained it fully, yet, and he's kind of lost it. Both are stubborn, too.
How crazy that at 48, I am the fulcrum of wisdom? In the void of knowing what is right and good and best, I emerge as the knowledge source?
Those who have traveled this path before me have said this is what it would be like as the family landscape shifts. But, like labor and childbirth, you never fully understand it until you experience it firsthand.
The cell phone rings and jars me out of this deep, disturbing contemplation. It is the daughter.
"Dad is freaked out," she reports. "He wants me to get pepper spray and mace."
Hmmm. The thought of a viable, protective force helps settle my unhinged mental state about life beyond control.
I'll take that spray in a plastic shield, please. And, make it a double.