I walked into the ADU (where we set up her room so she has her own space for the summer) out of habit, said "Jay," and then it hit me, she's not here anymore, and I got emotional in there. All summer that was my little routine, poking my head in to see if she wanted matcha, or to come along for whatever I was doing that day, and the kids were always running in there to find her (usually waking her up much earlier than she was planning). Now it's quiet, and I got so sad standing in it, her bed was neat and she left her room all organized.
We just got back from dropping Jay off in Boca Raton for her sophomore year at Lynn University. This letter is the whole weekend, an hour into a 13-hour drive and she's on the wrong freeway, the dorm room rearrange, and the goodbye in a hotel lobby that got all of us teary eyed...