I remember being shocked when I asked a friend how she was feeling about her eldest child moving out. She smiled and confided wearily: “It’s time. For all of us.” At that stage in my own life, both of my boys were still young enough to insist on curling around me as we all watched a movie together like a small tribe of monkeys. I literally could not envision them leaving home without welling up and feeling physically empty and panic stricken. I would feel as though I had swallowed a stone. But I now know that nature has a way of clearing that up quite nicely. And it looks like this: