RIVER CITY JOURNAL: LISTEN TO THE ... UH ... NOTHING, SOUND OF AN EMPTY NEST

You would think having a son home for just a week wouldn't be such a big deal. But it is. And his absence leaves a big gap we thought we were used to.

For seven days, our home was no longer an empty nest.

Our younger son, who has been working on a project in Utah the past six months, is moving to San Antonio. In the in-between time, he came home for a week.

Younger son travels with the tools of his trade: computers, monitors, keyboards and gizmos far too complicated to explain to mere parents.

Since this delicate and expensive equipment couldn't possibly bear a July week in Missouri stored in his vehicle, he used the front entry hall as a temporary locker. Oh, did I mention the bicycle?

The good news is that during younger son's visits, he becomes something of a personal chef, catering to our needs for sustenance and throwing in a good dollop of flair and hot spices. We eat well when he's around.

The bad news is that we have to act like grownups. We eat sitting in chairs at a table. We dish food out of bowls and off platters. Presentation, you know, is a big part of a fine meal. If you don't understand this, we'll send younger son over the next time he's here to explain it to you.

In addition, we share one of the bathrooms with younger son. He is the make-everything-convenient-to-use kind of bathroom occupant. All of HIS stuff is just a reach away. All of MY stuff is in the medicine cabinet, which curiously has toiletries, not medicine, in it.

Younger son also has a tendency to use all the toilet tissue and leave the holder with an empty cardboard cylinder. You don't need the details, but you see how this could be a problem.

We managed a couple of excursions while younger son was home, and they were enjoyable. Young men of the species, however, demonstrate their independence generally by disagreeing with virtually every choice made by parents. Movies, books, magazines, TV shows, travel destinations -- if a parent likes them, a young man doesn't. It's a simple equation, but one every parent should understand.

We've discovered that there are ways to get a young man to state his preferences first and make him defend his choices -- dig in, so to speak -- before dropping the bombshell that we agree. It's an evil game, but parents have to have some fun too.

Shortly before 5 a.m. yesterday we were roused from our slumbers as younger son set off for Texas via Arkansas. The 900-mile trip, he calculated, would mean arriving at a decent hour that evening. We believe him. The 1,435-mile trip from Utah to Missouri took just over 18 hours. Don't ask for details.

Why is it that the empty-nest thud hits you in the stomach no matter how many times your offspring leave to go off to big states a long way away? Sure, it's easy to explain that first big ache when they go off to college and leave you to your own devices. It's harder to explain why emptiness rears its ugly head after just a week of togetherness.

"Sure is empty here," my wife said at breakfast just an hour or so after the latest departure.

Her words echoed.

I had never noticed an echo before.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.