The Last Summer Camp Drop Off
By Vivian Marino
As I write this today, it’s Wednesday, July 15, and I just dropped off my youngest daughter at her school summer camp. As she climbed out of the car, I noticed the vehicle in front of us. A little boy, probably just finished fourth grade and heading into fifth, stepped out of the car with his little lunch kit in hand. He still had that unmistakable look of being his mama’s little boy.
Before walking away, he turned around, smiled, and blew his mom a kiss. It was such a simple, tender moment, but it stopped me in my tracks.
Then it hit me. This Friday will be the last time I ever drop one of my children off at summer camp.
My daughter is in seventh grade now, and she’s outgrown the camps she’s attended for years. As the youngest of my four children, she marks the end of an era. This chapter is quietly ending.
The next time I find myself dropping someone off at camp, apart from helping a friend or family member, will most likely be a grandchild.
That realization caught me completely off guard.
How did I get here?
For so many years, I longed for life to slow down. I was deep in the weeds of raising four children, four schedules, four schools, endless carpools, backpacks, lunches, practices, and eventually college drop-offs.
Now, life has finally slowed down. But as it has, I’ve realized that every bit of that slower pace has been accompanied by another goodbye. The seasons I once thought would last forever quietly slipped away, one ordinary day at a time.
The truth is that we rarely know we’re living a “last” moment while it’s happening. Most of those moments don’t announce themselves. They look like any other ordinary day until one day you look back and realize they were anything but ordinary.
That’s the nature of parenthood. We spend years preparing for our children to leave, even though our hearts wish we could slow time down.
But maybe you’re reading this while you’re still in the thick of it. Maybe you’re juggling camp schedules, forgotten water bottles, packed lunches, and wondering if life will ever slow down.
It will.
And when it does, you will wonder if it was all just a dream because it passed by that quickly and sometimes seems like a blur.
So, here’s my encouragement for you.
One afternoon, skip rushing straight home. Stop for snowballs. Go get ice cream. Say yes to the playground. Take them somewhere unexpected just because it’s a random Tuesday. Not because they need another activity. But because one day, you’ll both remember it.
So, if you see me in the camp carpool line this Friday wearing a big pair of sunglasses, just do me a favor…
Look the other way. The tears won’t be because I wish I could go back. They’ll be because I was blessed enough to have lived it.
I sometimes wish memories could be bottled like perfume. That whenever you missed a season of your life, you could uncork the bottle, breathe it in, and for just a moment be transported back to the sounds, the laughter, the little voices, and the feeling of having everyone under one roof again.
But then again, there are always new bottles waiting to be filled.
Because if we spent all our time reopening yesterday’s bottle, we might miss the fragrance of today and tomorrow: new seasons, new memories, and new people to love.
This Friday may mark the end of summer camp drop-offs, but it is not the end of the story. It’s simply life placing a new, empty bottle in my hands, waiting to fill it with new stories I can’t yet imagine.
Vivian Marino
Vivian Marino is a stay-at-home mom of 4 kids, ages 18, 17, 14, and 9. She’s been married to her husband, Mark, for 19 years, and they live in the New Orleans Lakefront area. When she’s not busy attending football games, soccer games, or doing endless loads of laundry, she enjoys her weekly date nights with her husband and spending time with her kids doing outdoor activities. She also writes for the Clarion Herald and NOLA Catholic Parenting. Her passion is all things fitness, given that she has her Master’s in Exercise Physiology. On any given day, you can find her doing her favorite Hour Blast class or trying any new workout out in town. During the summer months, she hits the mountains and the trails, doing what she loves the most … hiking! The harder the climb, the better the view!
