The Last One Is Sweetest

As a kid, one of my favorite candies was M&Ms. I loved sorting out the colors and eating all of, say, the yellow ones first. They were great fun to pelt that skinny freckled boy at recess who was always hanging around. And although they weren’t supposed to melt in your hand, they always did, and made a great multi-colored tattoo on your palm when holding it upright to give Mr. Spocks Vulcan greeting to your science geeky friends.

The only thing is, that in that little brown bag, there never seemed to be enough. After sharing them, and throwing them, and watching ants swarm them, I would get down to the last few and always wished I had enjoyed the others more. Eaten them slower. Thrown less at the freckled boy. Not agitated the ant piles. The last one was always the sweetest, I would take the most time before eating it, and I held it on my tongue the longest. And when finally the bag was empty, I really wished I had just one more. Because, after all, that final M&M was the very last one.

Last week my second son finished his last day of school as a senior. He is my second little boy to finish 13 years of getting up obscenely early in the morning to get dressed, eat breakfast, and grab lunches as I stood in the driveway to see three little people off on the big yellow bus. I would wave until it made the corner in the beginning, trying not to droop too badly as my tired body wanted to go collapse in the grass. And as they got older, I was no longer allowed to wave in the driveway, so I would watch the yellow bus make the corner from my kitchen window. And even later, I would clandestinely watch that blue truck pull out of the drive.

Now for the second time, it was over. No more arguments in the morning about where was his favorite shirt. No more complaints about how I had burned his eggs and used the wrong bread for his toast. He will be heading away down the highway to find his own clothes and toast his own bread, not needing Mom anymore.

No longer will I hear the arguments in the hallway of how his sister is hogging the bathroom, or getting makeup all over his stuff. I will never again have that scramble to find the essay he wrote last week or the Algebra homework he left on the couch. He has come over the crest of the mountain and done it so well, but 13 years seemed to fly by far too quickly just like those summer days flew by of vacations at the beach.

As he grabbed his last white collared shirt and khaki Hollister pants, and he ate his last scrambled eggs before dashing out the door, I stared at the young man that had once been my little boy. That same little boy who I had called out word after word on each Thursday morning while he was learning to spell. The same one who had counted the days until he could catch that bus with his big brother for the very first time. That same one who I had taken off work to attend field days and field trips, and dashed up to the school to bring forgotten backpacks and trumpets, had sold millions of candies and mountains of popcorn to fund 13 years of PTOs at three different schools. He came home that last day with a mortarboard and tassels and ran off with his friends.

I remember when they first started school, I thought I faced an eternity of those early, dark mornings where I would never sleep until the sun rose again. I thought I had forever of early nights for bedtime and countless hours of homework. I looked forward to the end of those many colorful days of regimented lifestyles and only buying white shirts.

And that last day in my kitchen I carefully cooked his eggs. I ironed his white shirt and handed him his last few dollars for lunch. This morning was so different than the thousands before. This morning I tried to make last just that few minutes longer, and hold each minute that much more dear. Because I knew this one was different. This one laden with regret of all the mornings I wasted. If only I had just a few mornings more. And as I watched that young man dash away I knew this morning was sweetest. Because, after all, it was the very last one.