Sadness is the norm when junior is at the dorm

MUNSTER, Ind. -- Alyce Weidner was calm as her son's departure to Purdue loomed. She bought sheets, a compact refrigerator and a microwave for Matthew's dorm room. She organized a mini-convoy to West Lafayette and helped her 18-year-old unpack.\nThen the mother of two kissed her firstborn goodbye and burst into tears. Her husband Ralph, 45, and daughter Annie, 14, were wet-eyed, too. But Weidner cried that night and the next day. She's still lonesome -- and baffled -- weeks later.\n"I shopped for this. I prepared for this. I guess I didn't think it would be so final," said the Hammond florist, 43. "You've been a mom for 18 years. You've done a job. He's gone. Now what?"\nThe boomer's question is one echoing in thousands of homes nationwide. A few giddy parents crack champagne when the kids leave, but others are blindsided by a sense of loss at this first step to an empty nest.\nThe good news: Mental meltdowns are normal. The bad news is they can be triggered by anything -- even a box of cornflakes.\n"You're not crazy if you find yourself sobbing in a moment. It comes out of nowhere," said Jennifer Wyatt, author of "The Launching Years," a self-help guide for parents of teens. "Maybe you're standing in front of the child's favorite cereal in a grocery."\nShe and co-author Laura Kastner, a psychologist, have listened to scores of tales "about people who were surprised by something out of the blue. Like their rooms…you go in there and you don't even want to pick up the dirty clothes they left behind because it's like they're still there."\nCollege officials are besieged by laments, too -- the reason many universities now offer coping tips on Web sites. And parents-only seminars are cropping up during orientations.\nAt Ball State University, parents attend a "Challenge to Change" workshop while freshmen meet with academic advisers. The grown-ups are briefed on ways to foster independence.\nA 20-minute break follows "because a lot of the moms get very emotional," director of orientation Lisa Horst said. "They have to go to the restroom because they're bawling their eyes out."\nDads are more stoic, though an equal number of men and women skip the workshop. "We say, 'We have a separate session for you' and they say, 'I want to be with Johnny,' or whoever," Horst said. "There's not a lot of them, but it happens on a daily basis."\nPrevious generations dispatched their kids into the world at age 18. Yet 77 million graying boomers have a heightened sensitivity to this major life transition.\nMany have come to define themselves as moms and pops, said Robert Billingham, an associate professor of human development and family studies at Indiana University. Educated middle-class couples delayed parenthood, then lavished attention on the few children they had.\nIn contrast, early pioneers barely mentioned their young in diaries. They stayed aloof to cope with the high infant mortality rate.\n"The emotional attachment boomers have to their children is historical," said Billingham, a father of two college students and two youngsters at home. "When the child's gone, it's almost like cutting off an arm or a leg."\nAlso troubling boomers is their awareness of the perils of casual sex and substance abuse. Then there's the aging issue. When a college freshman skips out the front door, middle age rings the bell.\nFor happy individuals and marriages, these mixed emotions are unsettling. But single parents and couples with long-buried issues face earthquakes on the domestic landscape. All need to reconnect with their own interests and relationships while their children blaze their own trails.\n"You may have been busy driving car pools to soccer games," said Wyatt. "But then your children leave and you have to deal with everything you may not have had time to deal with before. Whatever little cloud has been over your life, that you've been able to push aside, it's going to be right over you."\nLike Weidner found, separation pangs are unpredictable. Yet parents do learn to savor their newfound liberty.\nFirst comes the grieving process, which lasts minutes to months depending on the individual. Then comes a feeling of ambiguity, where one wavers between sadness ("If only Adam were here to open this jar for me") and gladness ("Skip the Ragu. Let's go out to dinner.")\nLauren Schaffer and Sandy Fleischl Wasserman have been there. The authors of "133 Ways to Avoid Going Cuckoo When the Kids Fly the Nest" have sent four children between them to college. The pair liken the transition to being fired from a job they never wanted to quit. They survived and are thriving.\nThe flip side of missing a child is relishing your freedom, Wasserman said. "I just started a book club and started playing the mandolin. Both are therapeutic and have brought me a different joy. It's given me a different identity. I'm not just a mom. You launch into a new stage of life because you have time to do it."\nFor many couples, an empty nest is a chance to grow even closer. Corinne and Rick Powell of Schererville were wistful when their daughter and son went off to Purdue. So the couple, married 28 years, took up hiking. They have since explored trails from Starved Rock to Yellowstone and love their new independence.\nThey felt guilty the first time they visited Disney World "solo" but got over it. "We had so much fun," said Corinne, 51. "Disney World's not just for kids."\nWhen Andrea, 24, and Doug, 22, are home from school, where they study veterinary medicine and chemical engineering, the atmosphere is electric, with phones ringing, friends visiting and cars pulling into the driveway. Then they leave and the Powells contentedly resume the second half of their marriage.\nThey also rest easy, confident they did a good job raising their children. That's a reward unto itself.