B4
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JULY 16, 2022
College: My daughter was hundreds of miles away, yet we still shared a special bond
Continued from Page B1
“She’s such a delightful
child, so adventurous and
imaginative,” her teacher
said. Where had the time
gone? Wasn’t it just yester-
day when I had gone to her
swim meets, her piano recit-
als? Taken her to Israel to
meet her father and shown
her Jerusalem, the city of
her birth?
Now our time together
was drifting away like the
sand on the beach. In a few
short days, she’d be on her
own. And unfortunately, so
would I.
I had urged Elissa to
choose a college outside
of Oregon, not wanting to
inhibit her life the way my
mother had. She was always
checking up on me, want-
ing to know where I’d been,
who my friends were. Never
trusting me to make my own
decisions, questioning me
all the time until I couldn’t
take it any longer and moved
out.
Elissa deserved her free-
dom, unencumbered by me
who wanted to control her
life. “You need to go away
to college. Find your own
identity. Figure out what
you want to do in life. I
don’t want you feeling
trapped like I did,” I said.
We had done the college
circuit tour the year before,
visiting the campuses of
Pomona College, Scripps
College, Occidental College
and Santa Clara University.
She chose Santa Clara, a
Catholic school in northern
California. As I pulled into
the parking lot, we looked
at each other. She looked
glorious. A cold sweat ran
down my face. I helped her
unload, carrying the boxes
David Prasad
to her dorm room.
“Don’t get too religious,
I don’t want to see you recit-
ing a rosary,” I said, joking.
“Mom, you know me better
than that,” she said. I drove
home the next morning,
expecting to hear my daugh-
ter’s voice on my answering
machine. But there were no
messages. My heart ached.
Fumbling through my
purse, I found the crum-
pled piece of paper where
she had scrawled her new
phone number and picked
up the receiver. “No,” I told
myself slamming it down.
“I need to let her be.”
Walking into her bed-
room, I opened the blinds.
Everything was gone. Her
clothes, all her makeup, her
boombox. Then, out of the
corner of my eye, I saw her
teddy bear. It was lying on
her bed, its beady eyes smil-
ing at me. I cuddled it in my
arms, crying softly. The yel-
low and white fur around
its nose had long ago worn
away.
The teddy bear had been
a gift from my mother along
with a pink frilly dress, a
polka-dot sleeper and dia-
pers. When I’d lay Elissa in
her crib as a baby, I’d wind
a key so that the bear could
play a soothing lullaby.
Soon, it became her time-
less possession.
She had left the bear
to comfort me. Soon, the
phone rang. “Mom, are
you okay? I haven’t heard
from you and was wor-
ried something might have
happened,” she said on the
other line.
I thought she had been
too busy to call. “Mom,
you’ll always be in my life.
I love you,” she said. I took
a deep breath. My daugh-
ter was hundreds of miles
away, yet we still shared a
special bond.
When Elissa came home
the following summer, I
was thrilled. We spent sev-
eral hours sorting through
her old clothes and books in
the garage. Tucked under-
neath her Sunset High
School yearbook was the
teddy bear. “Remember
this?” I said, dusting it off .
I gave it back to her to keep.
“It’s yours now. A token of
my love.”
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