School’s beginning can seem like an end

June. July. August. Poof.

It’s the end of summer, a time of year when reality strikes, and I’m acutely aware of the fleeting nature of things.

Like warm weather.

Twilight that lasts past 9 p.m.

And life with children.

For me, the end of summer calls forth the truth of childhood’s transitory nature, more than any other time of year.

Unlike a single birthday for one of my children, the end of summer points to a collective growing-up and away.

Whereas three months ago, my trio was in first, sixth and ninth grades, suddenly they have all moved forward a year, just by virtue of the fact that we went shopping for school supplies.

I tell myself I’m going to get a handle on this.

I’m going to be like the mother down the street who told me when her son finally went off to college, she was ready to be freed from dirty tennis shoes all over the house, the phone ringing off the hook and arguments about curfews.

I tell myself I’m going to be ready, too.

I’m going to pull out “The Prophet” by the great poet and philosopher, Kahlil Gibran, and memorize those lines, meditate on those lines that say: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but are not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.”

I’m going to seriously contemplate the philosophical notion that we shouldn’t hold on so tightly to things or people or life. This is an idea present in many of the world’s religions, to include Christianity with its emphasis on heavenly treasures vs. earthly, and Buddhism, which points to the concept of impermanence. By concentrating on the transience of earthly things, by ceasing to hold onto anything, we can let go our grasp and enjoy, appreciate what we have right now.

I try. I stand in the kitchen, watching my sun-kissed children as they play a card game together at the table. But instead of appreciating and enjoying, I turn away, because I find myself weeping.

One day, one autumn, they will all disappear from the table, like my sister-in-law’s three boys are doing, one by one.

This summer, sitting on the beach, she and I talked about her first son, who had just finished his first year of college. Her second had just gone to California to visit the college he wants to attend next year. Her third son had just finished his first year of high school.

“Of course, I’m happy they’re doing well. It’s good for them to get out on their own. But I miss them so much, and I guess I always will,” she told me.

I tell myself I will grow into their leave-taking. Instead, I find myself romanticizing about a different period in our country’s history, when kids moving away to college or the armed services or the Peace Corps or a job halfway around the world, was an anomaly, when kids picking up and making themselves a home a mile or two down the road was the natural order.

I push my mind to look toward September, when the kids are back in school, and life has a bit more structure and predictability to it.

Instead, I find myself longing — for the weather to stay warm, for the sunlight to linger, for summer never to end.