It drives the boys crazy.

I'm forever missing freeway off ramps. They think it's just because I don't pay very close attention to road signs. What they don't understand is that I can't help myself ... it's really one of those strange genetic things.

I come by the problem quite naturally. You see, my mother has no sense of direction. She can get lost going to the grocery store. She'll just miss a turn because her mind's off somewhere else. And it's got nothing to do with age—she was doing this back when she was a thirtysomething mom carting my brother, sister and me around the not so crowded Los Gatos of the 1950s. In that way, I take after her. So it's not my fault ... it's hereditary. Thanks a lot, Mom.

So when I took the youngest off to college at Long Beach State last weekend, it wasn't my fault that I missed the 405 turnoff off of Highway 5, or the correct Long Beach off ramp off the 405.

Now, usually one of the boys is there to bail me out.

"Did you see that sign?" they'll ask every time.

"What sign?" I'll say in all innocence.

"The one we just passed!" they'll screech. "This is our turnoff!"

"I knew that," I'll say, not exactly convincing anyone (maybe because I'll be careening across three lanes of traffic at the time, trying to get to the exit before it flies by us).

But last week the boys weren't with me. I was driving the U-haul with all of the college-bound kid's belongings while he trailed impatiently behind in his own car.

So he just had to watch helplessly as I soared past Long Beach's Lakewood Avenue exit headed south to San Diego and points beyond.

"He's going to miss the exit," he said to his buddy. "He's going to miss it ... he missed it!"

It took him another exit or two to catch me, and another exit or two to get my attention. You see, my mind was off somewhere else. I was delivering my youngest child to college, and I wasn't dealing with the prospect all too well.

The idea that I was taking him hundreds of miles away and dropping him off was not sitting well with me.

Oh, it's not like he's never been away from home before. It's just that this time the reality of his leaving for good was sinking in.

It was difficult to face ... for me, and for him.

It wasn't college. Going off to college is quite natural. It was the realization that we'd reached a very dramatic stage in the life of our family.

He'll come home. I'll visit him. But it will never be the same. And the time had come for me to deal with the fact that the little guy scrambling down the stairs on Christmas morning in his dinosaur pajamas was now a young man taking the first steps of his adult life.

I helped moved him into his apartment one day, and left the next. When I left, it was pretty emotional, at least for me.

"You be good and study hard," I said, choking through some tears.

I walked into the John Wayne Airport for my flight home, left to deal with the emotion alone. It was a difficult flight—emotional and tearful.

As soon as I got home, I called him in his apartment, conveniently having forgotten my glasses. He wasn't there.

I called an hour later and got his roommate.

"Kevin? Oh, he's not here," said Brett. "He's in some girl's room."

Apparently, he was adjusting nicely to his new life.

It wasn't so easy for me. I was still aching with the loneliness of losing my best buddy. So I called my mom for a little motherly comfort.

"This is hard," I told her through my tears.

"No," she said firmly. "This is life."

"I remember when you left home," she added. "I felt bad, too. But then I thought about those mothers who were sending their sons off to Vietnam, not knowing if they'd ever see them again. When you think of it that way, college doesn't sound so bad, now does it?"

Boy, she may not know her way to the grocery store, but she certainly knows a lot about life.

Thanks a lot, Mom.

Want to talk? Call me at 408.354.3110, ext. 31, or drop me a note at dsparrer@svcn.com.