THE night before we dropped our son off at college for his freshman year, I dreamed about my obstetrician. Dr. George Feldman retired more than a decade ago, and I hadn’t needed his obstetric services since long before that. But there he was, stethoscope draped jauntily around his shoulders, smiling into my face.
I’m not surprised he showed up in my subconscious that night. After all, he delivered the boy whom we, in turn, were delivering to his dorm room the next morning. Everything has been feeling circular these days. Time, instead of progressing in a straight march, instead seems to be taking all sorts of crazy loops backward before suddenly leaping forward again.
Last summer, when I was starting to get all misty-eyed about the departure of Paul, my younger child, I told him I wasn’t sure if his leaving home signified that, after more than 22 years on the job, I had been promoted or fired as a mom.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/23Rgen.html