Sherry was nurturing his ambition to go to the United States or UK for his higher education. He was preparing for SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) as well as filling the UCAS (Universities and College Admission Service) application form, and applying to various Universities. He had passed the Advanced Level Certificate of the London GCE with 5 A grades and became the top student of the school in 2005. He was admitted to few Universities. He was awarded with the Kofi Annan (former UN Secretary General) scholarship for four years by Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, for his undergraduate studies in Mathematics and Economics. His brilliant CV had earned him the prestigious scholarship. He was also offered a part-time job in the Alumni house. Kofi Annan was a former student of the Macalester College, so was Vice President Walter Mondale of the United States. So, Sherry had decided to join the Macalester in the Fall of 2005. I had decided to drop him off at the College. We all kept our emotions to ourselves. On 25th August 2005, Sherry and me flew from Nairobi to St. Paul by KLM via Amsterdam. Travelling from a Third world country to a First world country was exciting. There were lot of anxiety as we landed at Macalester. We had to find the dorm, meet the roommate, unload the boxes, meet the host family, meet the deans of the faculties, take a tour of the campus, opening bank accounts and looking for Alumni House. My brother George's son Preji had flown in from California to help Sherry to settle down. I spent one week at St. Paul, touring historical sites, visiting Minnesota state fair etc., and flew back to Nairobi on 3rd September.

As soon as I sat in my window seat in the plane, the ‘empty nest syndrome' enveloped me. I had watched my son crawling, then toddling and walking, then running, and then flying to a University far away in a new country. Now, I need a visa to visit him in the future. It is not the physical separation which hurts, but the emotional distance. I know my son had entered into a great University, something he had worked hard for many years. Sherry had rarely been emotional in his life. He was a pragmatist from the beginning. The emotions of a parent, dropping his son at the University are an odd mix of pride and resignation, loss and grief. His life is really starting, with new friends, new atmosphere, with new tastes of food and new climate. He is going to have a great future in which my part is diminishing. My future would be bleak without him close to me. Until yesterday, I was there doing everything for him, dropping and picking him from the school, carrying him to the church, teaching him Physics, awaken when he was sick and sleeping, kissing and hugging him on his birthdays, helping him to make the Christmas tree and the crib, going out for dinner on special occasions, ordering his favorite dishes, clapping and cheering for him at the great speeches he had made in the school assembly, and taking pride in his academic accolades. I didn't know whether I was a good father to him, but he taught me many things of parenthood, how to be more friendly and loving, how to worry less about the children, how to listen and understand more to the child than talking to him. When was the last time I really listened to his views, feelings, and emotions? It hurts and the pain had started dripping into my heart. I didn't notice that I was dehydrating with so much water flowing copiously from my eyes. He was the center of my world, revolving around him in a closed orbit. Now I have moved into a far orbit. One of the greatest gifts in my life has been my children. Now both of them are far away from home. There were love and loss flowed between me and my son which had made our bond stronger. I was shattered at the thought of losing his love. I felt like getting out of the plane and go back, and hug him again, and shout "Sherry, I love you". I recalled, how he had comforted me when I lost my mother at his young age of eight years. I remembered, how he would stop at the culvert leading to his nursery school looking down at the water flowing beneath, and urged me to tell the story of the dog and the bone, how the dog barked at its own image in the water with the bone in its mouth. I recalled the first time he ran to me when he was in his first standard with his Math test paper and shouting "Dad, I got 100%", the first time he served as an altar boy for the holy mass, the number of story books he used to pick from the bookstore, the sleepless nights he spent reading Harry Potter, the number of times he climbed the stages to collect the numerous academic prizes, and how he imitated the famous moonwalk dance of Michael Jackson on the stage. It brought to my mind, the day he had come back from Meru scooping the first prize in Physics at the National Science Congress, holding his head high and raising the trophy with his right hand, and handing it over to me and said "Dad, this is for you", and the day he had handed over to me the $300.00 which he had received as a reward for his hard work as the Chair of the General Assembly at the Model United Nations and told "Dad, this is my first earning of my own hard work. All these things were possible because of you; you are the right person to receive it". I couldn't remember how many times, I dropped him at the gym at 6.00 am in the morning and picked him at 7.00 am after attending my daily mass, how his teachers appreciated his extraordinary courtesy and humility, and the numerous other incidents I had encountered in his life. I didn't notice that the plane had landed at the Schiphol airport, Amsterdam. The air hostess was very polite when she reminded me to alight the plane.