When A Child Moves Out Poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen

There is vacuum in the house
when a child moves out;
There is vacuum in the house
when what used to be presence
is now changed to silent absence.

As a mother, I still cling on
to the memories of my child
in her room, in this house
where she slept, giggled and lived.

There is that loneliness
in bearing the vacuum
of my child's absence, in realizing
that she's no longer a little
child who used to giggle and cry.

She has grown up and has moved out
Her absence is now merged
with the presence of her own freedom.
And I, as a mother, cannot ask for more.