Headline: IT'S NICE TO HAVE TIME TO GET REACQUAINTED WITH YOUR SPOUSE
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tue., Feb. 15, 2000
Section: METRO, Page: B1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

It's a lot quieter around the Freeman household these days.
  
Our son has left home to go to college, and things are considerably different. Gone are the loud music, the attempts at dancing, the many friends in and out of our home and refrigerator.
  
Gone, too, is my in-house computer expert. Will has always understood computers better than I; the younger a person is, the better that person is with computers, I've concluded. (In a phone conversation last week, he was trying to convince me to install the new Windows 2000 on my computer. I told him I'd wait until he came home during a break to install anything.)

When he left for college in the fall, there was sort of a culture shock for my wife and me. She says that I was more affected by Will's absence, but I submit that she missed him just as much. Will and I have a father-and-son relationship, of course, but we're also friends.
   He's my bud, and all of a sudden, my bud was gone. 
All of a sudden isn't quite right. As he grew up, we saw less and less of him. He has lots of friends and, to no one's surprise, spent more time with them. So we began to see less of him anyway.

But with him gone from the house -- well, that changed things considerably. I noticed that when he had been at home, I worried about him much more: what time would he get home, would he be careful, would he be sure not to fall in with the wrong crowd.
  
But once he'd gone off to Chicago for college, I worried less about such things. Only when he's home during breaks have I found myself worrying again.
   For all but two years since we married in 1979, my wife and I have lived our lives as parents. First, taking care of the baby when he was small. Then getting him to day care as he got older. Getting him to class and to do his homework when he entered school. Not to mention the many birthday parties, Boy Scout meetings, music lessons and so many other activities where parents get involved in their children's lives.

So after he'd left for college, my wife and I asked each other, "What do we do now?"
  
We thought about what we did before we married. We used to go to the disco, I remembered, but my wife reminded me of several things: There's nothing called "the disco" anymore; I haven't the faintest idea what the latest dance is; and we'd probably be accused of being old fogies if we went to many of today's dance clubs (she reminded me what we used to think when we'd see older people -- read that as 40 or over -- at the disco when we were in our 20s).

Still, even without the disco as an option, my wife and I have grown closer. We're doing more and more things together: going out to dinner and to the movies; going to bookstores; even doing things like going to hardware stores to look at bathroom fixtures. I admit the last activity isn't exactly what you'd call romantic, but we've enjoyed it anyway.
  
In effect, we've started dating again. And we've started to remember what drew us to each other in the first place.
   In my case, I was always drawn to my wife's intelligence, her compassion, her quiet wisdom and her fun-loving nature.
   In her case, well, I'm not real sure. Perhaps it's my ability to be a slob, no matter what the occasion. Or my uncanny knack of leaving my socks on the floor wherever I go. Or my amazing resemblance to Denzel Washington. (I can dream, can't I?)

My wife and I have had our ups and downs over the years, as I suspect many couples have. But we've learned to be supportive of one another and to understand one another.
  
So while we both still miss Will terribly, his absence has also given us an opportunity to discover ourselves again.
  
Without knowing it, our son has given his parents a gift.


COPYRIGHT © 2000, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

back