Dogs and cats only live until they’re about 15, yet humans live 80 years or more. That bothered me when I was a kid. It didn’t seem fair: You invest all that time, love, and energy into your friendship, and just when it’s getting good, your pet dies.
Basically, you’re investing in a heartbreak.
But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon between parents and kids: You pour your heart into ‘em for 18 years… and then they go away, too.
Mental health experts call it empty nest syndrome — that sense of sorrow when your kids move out. Apparently, it’s pretty common: One study says it’ll hit about half of all parents; another has it hitting 95% of moms — and 99% of dads.
(It makes you wonder about the 1% of fathers who didn’t give a crap. Those gents must’ve been bang-up dads, eh? Guess there are always outliers — like in those old toothpaste commercials, where nine out of ten dentists say, “You should brush your teeth after every meal!” and the tenth guy is like, “Pfft. What are you, a neat-freak? Have another Mallomar.”)
I remember being 18: Couldn’t wait to move out! But that was normal back then. After turning 18 and/or graduating from high school, everyone I knew moved away. My parents gave me three options: Join the military, get a job, or go to college.
So naturally, I went to college. (It seemed like the toga parties would be way better.)
Nowadays, with so many parents complaining about their loser, slacker kids never moving out, I kind of hoped my kids would stick around, too. I mean, not seriously — I didn’t want my boys to be emotionally stunted man-babies — but in the back of my head, I hoped somehow, someway, nothing would ever change and that all the people I love most in the world would never leave.
I remember feeling similarly about my first dog, too. Intellectually, I knew he had a short lifespan, but while he was still here, whenever I imagined my life decades down the road, I couldn’t imagine it without him. In my heart, we’d always be a family.
Anything else was unthinkable.
Until your first pet dies, the concept doesn’t really register. Your brain protects itself by convincing you that your best friend dying is the sort of thing that only happens to other people — and your buddy will be the exception to the rule. And then, when the inevitable happens, you’re shellshocked: “This… this isn’t right. It’s not supposed to be like this!”
If only my kids were losers! Then they’d still be here!
But I also know it’s better this way. (It's better for them, at least.) They need more than their daddy can provide, and it’s an awfully big world out there.
They’ve earned the right to blaze their own trail.
And the longer they’re gone, the more “normal” their absence feels. Eventually, you stop setting a place at the dinner table for them, or imagining you hear their voices, or expecting to see them at all.
I’ve written about Leon, my 250-pound puppy, before. As you can imagine, when you take a dog like that on a walk, you get a lot of attention. I’ve never been a gorgeous blonde bombshell in a tiny bikini, but walking with Leon must be like taking a stroll with a gorgeous blonde in an itsy-bitsy bikini: Strangers come over. Cars slow down to stare. People point, giggle, and make comments like “Wow! I want one those, too!”
About a week or two after Leon died, someone walked their (normal-sized) dog down my street, and it occurred to me, “Oh. I used to be the guy in the neighborhood with the really big dog. But I guess that’s not me anymore.”
Now I’m someone else.
For over 18 years, I was the daddy with a pair of boys. We were the three amigos who watched movies, played games, went on adventures, and did EVERYTHING together. The Pinsker boys, getting into mischief! More than anything else, that was my identity.
Now I’m someone else.
In the Gospels, Jesus makes over 150 references to God as the Father. The analogy works on multiple levels: God gave us the gift of life and unconditional love. Through His word and His example, He taught us right from wrong. He is our Father, and we are His children — for now and forever.
Yet sometimes, His children leave. Sometimes, they never return home.
Some goodbyes are eternal.
God’s heart must get broken, too. Maybe far more than we can ever appreciate.
After all, in numerous parts of the Bible, it’s explicitly stated that God is slow to anger. Nowhere does is say He’s slow to sorrow.
Perhaps that’s the unavoidable price of being a long-distance father: It’s lonely and sad. By design, both man and God are investing in a heartbreak.
All we can do is leave a light burning in the darkness — so that when they’re ready, our children can come back home.
