On Losing a Son in the Foggy Pocket

By the time we had visited San Francisco State University a couple of times, we were forced to come to terms with a perplexing reality: the campus was perpetually shrouded in mist and topped with heavy gray skies. The very air was, frankly, damp.

Even if the sun was blazing a mile away, by the time we parked the car on campus, the bright afternoon had turned into the dreariest winter day in some far off soggy land such as, say, Seattle.

I call this small, dim, saturated square of earth, just south of San Francisco, the Foggy Pocket. And it is within this foggy pocket that my son chose to attend university.

The day (last month) that we drove from Sacramento, the van half full of Adam’s most prized possessions (and a few practical items), the sun followed us all the way to the front entrance to the campus. But it would not follow us in. Its rays fizzled and faded when they hit the misty gray wall that surrounded the school.

We parked in the cement parking garage and each carried a load of the items Adam would need to survive his first semester of university life. We labored the quarter of a mile uphill to his dorm building. His room was on the second floor.

Avoiding the long line of somber parents and antsy teenagers waiting for the elevator, we bumped our way up the stairs and found his room. His roommate had not yet arrived, but we found a piece of paper on one side of the room that read, “Adam.” He would live on the right side of this small room.

The room, well, the whole building, looked worn and a little dingy; buffeted by dozens of eager freshmen, year after year. Adam was, of course, delighted. We grimaced a little but didn’t say anything.

Adam and his father walked back to the car to get another load and I was left alone in the room to unpack and organize his few belongings. The resident advisor, Ben, proudly gay, stopped by and asked that we take home any drug paraphernalia that we may have brought. Trying to sound worldly I said sure, no problem.

When he sauntered away, I opened the window to clear some of the mustiness from the room. I stood at the window and looked down at the campus, knowing my son, the last of my brood of two, would look at the same view every day. I had to smile as I saw kids sporting hair that had been dyed every color of the rainbow; purple, green, and orange. Many of them slouched along, awkward but brazen, like young people are.

I turned and hoisted Adam’s bag onto the bed and started to hang his clothes in the closet that was assigned to him. I thought of the hundreds of times I had washed this boy’s clothes, folded them, and left them on his bed to be put away. This time I would put his clothes away for him and then leave him to his new life.

He and his father appeared and I heard Adam talking about his new transgender friend who had driven across the country from New York City to attend school at SFSU. Then Adam asked me not to unpack his underwear, that he would do it himself. I stopped what I was doing and stood uncertainly, not knowing what my role was now.

Adam mentioned, casually, that he had arranged to meet some people at the quad (already!), so his father and I picked up the empty boxes and we all walked back to the parking garage. We hugged our son and asked him to be careful and to make good choices. Then we climbed into the van and gave Adam a ride back up the hill to his dorm building.

With a few last words, he hopped out of the van and started walking the rest of the way to his dorm building. He looked straight ahead, his back straight. His father and I watched him walk, waiting and hoping he would turn around one more time and wave. He never did.

I commented that he didn’t turn around his first day of preschool when he was three years old, he didn’t turn around his first day of kindergarten when he was five years old, he didn’t turn around his first day of high school when he was 14, and he wasn’t going to turn around now. This kid always faces new experiences with his eyes wide open and without looking back.

We didn’t say much as we drove out of the foggy pocket that had swallowed up our only son. Predictably, the sun broke through the clouds as we left the area and made our way to the Bay Bridge and back to Sacramento. Our house would only hold the echoes of our two voices now. We would have to get along without the sound of Sara’s giggles or Adam playing the piano.

So that’s how we lost our son. He disappeared into the Foggy Pocket. But I suppose we lost him earlier than that. We lost him when we traveled the world with him, when we educated him, when we guided him very carefully and purposefully toward adulthood.

Ironically, that’s what we parent do—we push our children relentlessly forward when all we really want to do is snatch them back.