To the Parents Driving Home with an Empty Seat

It’s the season when many parents are making the long journey home, and doing so alone. On the journey there, they had a child in the seat behind them, a child who was making his or her way to college for the first time. But now, as they make the journey back, the seat behind them is empty. The car is a little less lively now, the tone a little more somber.I remember the first time Aileen and I did that drive. We had taken Nick to Boyce College in Louisville, Kentucky, gotten him settled, then s