Just two days after graduating from Eagle Pass High School, back in 1992, I was sitting on a parked bus headed to Texas A&M Kingsville for a college exploration program. It hadn’t yet hit me, but my mother was another story.

I could feel mom staring at me as I sat next to the window. I didn’t want to turn and look at her because I knew her eyes were tearing; the first of her three little birdies was flying away. Finally, I looked over at her. Just as I thought, here eyes were watery.

Fathers are usually stronger when it comes to goodbyes but not always by much. Dad knew there was nothing for me in our modest little town with just a high school diploma. I am not speaking against Eagle Pass Independent School District. All of my teachers there did their job of educating me for 12 years and the time had now come to let me out into the world. My parents and educators had taken care of me up until that point, but it was time for me to learn to take care of myself. Sitting there on that bus, however, it still hadn’t hit me how much I was going to miss my mother.

This was supposed to be a happy day, I thought to myself. Why is mom crying? It is something several mommies and daddies go through every summer, or at least the caring ones. You try and protect your kids from the pitfalls and mistakes of real life but there comes a time when Momma Bird needs to let the little ones spread their wings and fly out into the world. Every kid will make their mistakes. What person hasn’t.

All you can do is trust that your kids will do the right thing, evolve from their mistakes, learn to take care of themselves and create their own life. Kids grow up. We were all kids once. The hard working parents of this year’s high school graduating class have done their job and God bless them for it. Now it is time for the little chicks to learn about the real world and start becoming mature adults. May God be with them.

Sitting on the bus that day, all I had with me was a suitcase full of freshly clean clothes that mom had prepared for me. Mom’s clean clothes was just one of many things I learned to take for granted by that age. One week later, I stood in front of the washing machine at Poteet Hall with a huge load of dirty clothes and a box of detergent. I had never once washed my own clothes until that day, and I didn’t know how.

That’s when it hit me.

(Rey Sifuentes Jr. can be contacted at rataman2@ yahoo.com)