We didn’t expect to see her again s

We didn’t expect to see her again so soon. After a tearless farewell with my daughter, we left her new dorm room but then in the campus we saw her jogging against the August heat. I quickly rolled down the car window and Sarina didn’t miss a step as she turned, nodded at us and waved goodbye. I was in disbelief why the tears hadn’t come when we parted on her firstday in university. Our first separation, the day she left my body, was a nightmare of pain and suffering. While all births are amazing, not all women feel amazed about the births. However, our togetherness in the days and months that followed was so sweet that I felt her small body still seemed to be attached to mine. In the years to come, the sound of her feet running across the wooden floors of our house was like the gentle pounding that reminded me my little girl was here and that someday she would run to the paths I couldn’t follow. Last year Sarina turned 16 and decided to pursue art in college. She was in excitement about college life with so much to expect but I was uneasy because it would be a long plane ride away from home. I tried to imagine what separation would be like, but I couldn’t. Separation, although on the horizon, still felt distant. That’s why it wasn’t until the next morning when I awoke in a house absent of her footsteps that the tears finally came—and wouldn’t stop. I understood that Sarina had left the house, and I held onto the memory of her running. When the tears stopped, I was relieved that her body knew what it needed on separation day, and that with our love and support, she had the courage to run into an unfamiliar distance, to glance back, yet to keep moving forward. 24. What happened to the author on her daughter’s first day in college?