He’s not gone, he’s just getting started
Appalachian State University campus viewed from Howard's Knob. David Sabb photo
When I became a parent for the first time, I asked my brother what to expect. He already had two small children and another on the way.
“It’s overwhelming in every way,” he said.
He was right. It was, and it has been. They grew up too fast. That’s the oldest cliché in the book, but my God.
I guess I didn’t understand that giving them up to the whole wide world is just as overwhelming in every way.
We moved our son, Jac, into his new dorm at Appalachian State University. As we unpacked, I admired the view from his window. Right across the street is Sanford Hall, where my own future was formed nearly 40 years ago while I was working on my master’s degree in English.
This university has meant a lot to the Cox family. My brother and I are both graduates. My daughter will graduate in December with her degree in Elementary Education. She just moved back home long enough to do her student teaching this fall, and then Tammy and I will endure another cliché: becoming empty nesters.
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We tried to pack in a lot of time together along with all the other packing in the days leading up to Jac’s departure, including an Asheville Tourists baseball game and several lengthy family chat sessions out on the deck. There was much talk of change and transition, the thrill of it, the fear of it.
Jac is plunging into a world unknown this week. He doesn’t really know anyone at ASU. He has never met his roommate, which has been a source of intense concern. He will have to redefine everything about his life, his routines, his ways and means, his social circle, his coping mechanisms, all of it.
Through the wonders of social media, he has somehow joined a garage band. He’ll be playing drums, something he was born to do. When he was a baby and could not yet stand, he loved getting a rattle or a toy in each hand and pounding away on the nearest surface, a snack tray or a countertop or an ottoman.
“That boy likes to stay busy,” Tammy said.
“That boy’s going to be a drummer,” I said.
Like everything else about this new chapter in his life, this is something new. He flourished as the tenor drummer in the high school marching band, but he has never been in any other kind of band. But they’ve got plans and a list of songs to learn and practice. There’s a Ramones song in there, which makes dad happy.
After we got him unpacked, we went out in search of a late lunch before dropping by Walmart to pick up a few overlooked items, including a remote control for his television and broom and dustpan.
Lunch was not easy for any of us. We were nearly out of time and we knew it. Jac had become worked up with concerns about his roommate and just how he would get along in this strange new world. There was a lot of heavy sighing and head shaking, as if he were trying to chase off a bad dream.
Tammy’s eyes were wet and her lips quivering. Nothing on the menu looked good to her. We had all grown quiet, withdrawn into our own lonely places.
The server saved us. She was a boisterous, preternaturally cheerful woman named Deborah, who drove up to Boone from Morganton because she said she loved her job so much. She brought us a giant basket of free tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa. She told us about her grandchildren and pulled us out of ourselves and back into the world. She literally changed our day.
It wasn’t long after we got back to the room that Jac’s roommate appeared, an amiable fellow almost as tall as Jac. We all sat around chatting for nearly an hour about everything under the sun. I could feel the dark clouds drifting away from Jac, could see the transformation in his demeanor.
He was himself again. No more sighing or head-shaking. This might be all right after all.
After a flurry of hugs and pictures and more hugs and more pictures in front of his building and then across the street on Sanford Mall, we said our goodbyes and got on the road back home.
When we got home, the stillness was the hardest part. You get used to a certain kind of comfortable noise — the sound of tires on gravel when your son comes home, the rattle of his bed upstairs when he is reaching for a cup, the banter of boys playing games on the PlayStation, the throbbing bassline of an Alice in Chains song.
When all of that is gone, the quiet that you sometimes prayed for becomes a bitter rebuke, a be-careful-what-you-wish-for blank canvas you’ll have to learn how to fill.
My boy is gone.
And then, my iPhone lights up on the nightstand. He’s sending us a Marco Polo, a live action clip of him out on Sanford Mall, first as part of a small cluster of people cheering on someone who has managed to build a gravity-defying Jenga tower and then a little later, a glimpse of his new bandmates as they all are watching a concert out on a makeshift stage.
My boy is not gone. He’s just getting started. I can hear him now.
(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who lives in Haywood County. His work can also be found on Substack and his email address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
