The last one launches!

And she's off!

The last child is launched.  Not the baby, I haven't had any babies for a long time. (Though Carole was the 'bonus baby.')  The youngest of the family has left home officially and flown to Tennessee to live with Christina and her husband and find some kind of work, which is easier to come by there than here.

The sun glare was so bad, I couldn't see anything in the view finder.  Focused on my daughter when I checked the image, I didn't realize that none of the luggage was visible, but that's okay I guess.  She had her two free bags, a very stuffed carry-on, and paid for an extra checked bag.  They were all at the 50 pound limit--I had to bring home her winter coat, pulled out to make the weight--and she arrived safely.  We are actually all alone now.

It's been nice to have her in school near enough to see often.  It was indispensable to have her help in clearing out the house and moving.  We're grateful for her uncomplaining, huge effort in that.

Carole graduated two weeks ago with a degree in Russian.  This wasn't what she started out to do, but it worked out well. She chose not to join in the mob scene at the stadium and "walk" because they didn't even read out names--you just got in cap and gown, sat on the field to listen to speeches and declarations, and then stood and tossed your hat in the air when the president, over the mike, declared you now graduated.  That official fuss didn't matter much to her.

Instead, we just went up for the department convocation, which mattered a lot.  It was a personal, intimate program with an alumna speaker, various awards read, and then the graduates.  The University of Washington Department of * Slavic Languages and Literatures gave out five bachelor of arts degrees, two master of arts, and one doctorate.  Each graduate was introduced by a professor and had a chance to say a few words.  (There were a couple of additional graduates who were not included because of being already gone.)  Then there was a small reception where the students could do their goodbyes and the parents could meet the professors.

One of those professors was a seventyish woman who told me that our daughter was a treasure, beamed at her fondly, and kissed her on both cheeks to say goodbye.  Mass mob scene on the field can't touch that!  Another, a younger man, hoped she would continue in academia somewhere.  One professor, she told us later, was a Russian Jew who was able to come to Seattle on an exit visa made possible by (WA senator) Scoop Jackson's human rights amendment attached to a massive grain sale during the Brezhnev years, when there were huge crop failures in Russia.  At that time, it was a precarious thing to be a Jew:  if you protested persecution, you were in for worse-- if you applied to emigrate, you raised your profile as a target, but if you didn't get out you had no safety.  She was one who was able to get out because the U.S. pushed through those demands as part of their sales agreement.  So Carole had a bit of history first hand, which is ancient stuff on a page to most of her peers--if they're even aware of it at all.

So the proverbial nest is empty, and our youngest is off to find her own place in the world, as her brothers and sisters have done before her.  We still watch and pray for all of them, but we are proud of the adults they have become.


*(For a list of programs and languages--a lot of them!)