Dealing with grandkids leaving the nest

It's back to school time, and parents are sending their little ones to kindergarten or the first day of their last year of high school, perhaps to college.

Launching our children into life is a parent's lesson in letting go. As the mother of three daughters who launched into the world after completing their education more than two decades ago, I've been there, done that and have the well-worn empty nester T-shirt.

Over the weekend I had a phone conversation with our middle grandson, Jared, who graduated from high school in June. Unlike our eldest grandson, who for his first 14 years lived close by, including a few years just two houses away, Jared came into this world at an Army base in Texas. Our daughter, Melani, and her husband were both active-duty soldiers at that time. In all of Jared's 18 years we've never lived closer than 400 miles and never in the same state.

Through the years the letters, random packages that are sent for no special occasion and visits from us and from them, we've grandparented much differently than with our first grandson. We're the grandparents who've lived in the same house since each of the grandsons was born, a touchstone place in a world that's mobile and transitional. We're the grandparents who make sure when we visit that our hotel has a swimming pool and a hot tub. Jared once looked around at a hot tub filled with his grandparents, parents, aunts and cousins and declared that we'd made "family soup." He's also the one who triumphantly put his face in the water and swam to Grandpa Bert in a hotel pool, conquering a 5-year-old's fear of the water. Together we've floated the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River, frolicked in Lake Coeur d'Alene and slept in a tent. We've driven with the top down in December through the Winter Wonderland at the Portland International Raceway, bundled up and singing Christmas songs.

In June when we visited for Jared's graduation we spent a day at the coast, enjoying the sand, saltwater and quiet contemplation of the ocean on a blustery day. The young man who is our grandson was preparing to launch into adulthood and we all knew that this transitional time was both precious and fleeting.

In a few weeks, Jared reports to the Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Ill., for Navy boot camp. We talked about how exciting and scary it will be for him as leaves home for this new chapter of his young life. With confidence and maturity he talked about becoming an aviation structural mechanic and what he hoped to achieve with the Navy. In my mind I was picturing the little boy who loved to watch the planes land and take off at the airport and to whom I sent toy planes through the years.

It's hard to send your children off into the world and, as I'm discovering, it's a different kind of emotion at play with a grandchild. Perhaps we're far enough removed from our own youth to know that only by experience will the world unfold, that dreams and goals evolve in time. Perhaps it's our own roads not traveled or detours and forks taken that prompt introspection. The depth of pride and love I feel for this handsome young man who calls me grandma is deeper than any ocean he'll travel with the Navy.

Small-town kudos ... Kevin Randles, owner of Dashco and other commercial property on the north side of Hwy. 53 in Rathdrum has taken beautification to the next level. Colorful flowers and hundreds of American flags line the highway and a well-manicured and park-like vacant lot features an eagle statue and even more flags.

Kudos to the town spirit of Spirit Lake who came out on a rather dreary Labor Day Monday to celebrate with a parade and party in the park. For the 40th year Joy Porter orchestrated the Labor Day parade for her hometown that featured about a dozen entrants on the two-block Maine Street parade route. In lieu of a marching band, local potter Brad Sondahl played a banjo while walking the route, joined by a John Deere tractor and souped-up riding lawnmowers. The celebration continued in the park with VFW Post 1473 giving away hundreds of ears of buttered corn.

Local veteran Chris Moore has had quite an American Ninja Warrior experience this season. In the finals on Monday night he cruised Piston Alley, one-armed the Propeller Jump, rode through the Silk Slider, nailed the Jumping Spider but crashed on the Sonic Curve and was eliminated. He's pondering taking on the challenge for next season, but while he didn't win the big prize he raised more than $13,000 for Shriners Childrens Hospital. Win!

Kylee Solberg was the last woman standing on the Miss National Sweetheart stage in Illinois over the weekend, bringing the crown back to Idaho. The beautiful ballerina also won the talent category. Recap: All of the first-runners-up in state Miss America pageants participate and this is only the second time in 70+ years that Idaho claimed the crown!

It seems like a lifetime ago that our world was changed on Sept. 11, 2001. Our daughter, Sarah, was one year on the job as a flight attendant that day and I will never forget our horror and fear as we watched the terrorist attacks unfold. Sarah faced her own fears and continues as flight crew today.

So many heroes on Sept. 11 ... first responders, everyday citizens and the 33 pilots and flight attendants on American Airlines Flights 11 and 77, and United Airlines Flights 175 and 93 whose final moments were spent protecting their passengers. In these 14 years, in this country, I've gone through airport security lines where armed soldiers stood guard. I've been subjected to searches of my body and my belongings. I've had a sleepless night or two as the mother of a daughter whose airline career takes her in and out of major airports and puts her in the air most days of the week.

The horror of Sept. 11, 2001, should not be reduced to rhetoric or symbolism. Those horrific images, both print and electronic, should be kept fresh in all of our minds. They were real people - with real families - who were murdered by terrorists. And those are real people wearing the uniform of our armed forces, fighting and dying for freedom on foreign soil still today. Let your thoughts and prayers be with them all.

* At 7:15 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 11 a public 9/11 commemoration will be held in the plaza at Post Falls City Hall.

Happy birthday today to 9/9 birthday celebrants Mary Larson, Dani Zibell-Wolfe, Kibbee Walton, Seth Anderson, Dominick Pokosa, Krysta Azzollini, Marty Meyer and Chase Price. Tomorrow, Gregg Gain, Mary Ellen Denton, Tami Martinez, Mark Browning, Helen Terway and Annette Kennedy celebrate.

On Friday, Jim Pierce, Hannah Epstein, Cameron Epstein, Cyndie Brubaker, Jeremy Siegler, Kelly Hanson, Mark Compton, Lily Hollibaugh and Darrell Dlouhy take another trip around the sun. Saturday, Norman Ossaka Stickman, Rose Backs, Tiegan Horton, Nancy Adam and Polly Gava will blow out the candles.

Sunday celebrants are Kelly Sheffield, Chris Mann, Ryan Bartlett, Thomas Vigil, Marianne Buley, Mary Langenberg, Stormy Purcell, Ray Harwood, Lori Turchik, Laura Fierro, Joy Seward, JulieAnn Sparrowgrove, Cher Rhoads, Nicole Hamilton, Janell Mollett, Gina Davis and Debbie Margraff.

On Monday, Connie Glass, Diane Lemas, Wayne Dust and Anna DeTar are having birthdays. Claudia Brennan,Brad Medlock, Jerry Deitz, Jean Wright, Shannon Englander, Kathie Colosimo (40!), Angie Purcell, Liese Razzeto and Nick McDonald mark their birthdays on Sept. 15.

Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email mainstreet@cdapress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kerrithoreson.