My son, the senior

My son, the senior, has gone back to school today. I'm up to my ears in forms and paperwork and college websites. He's nonplussed while I tear up thinking about where we all were seventeen and a half years ago and wondering, quite honestly, where the years have gone. When I suggest that we host his school advisory potluck dinner (yes, I sucked up my loathing of potluck for the sake of the common good) he reacts with abject horror, almost violently. "No," he bellows as if his baby has been caught under the wheel of a monster truck. "So you're not keen on the idea?" I ask, sweetly. "Mamma, if you do that, I will kill you" he says quietly. My mind quickly unconjures up images of a happy bunch of seventeen year olds and their cool, hippy parents sitting on my deck, drinking cocoa and singing warming campfire songs. J and I are perched up in bed, pillows behind our backs, laptops on our knees, tea at the ready and we look at each other in that resigned way that we've taken so many years to refine. He's going to be fine; I'm just going to miss him.