THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 1, 1996 TAG: 9608290057
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WENDY GROSSMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 135 lines
AT 6:45 A.M. in their white Nikes, Bob and Lynne Hendon begin moving their daughter, Cori, into her freshman dorm at Old Dominion University. They lug her stuff up three flights and down empty halls. It will be another two hours before the other parents and 1,500 new dorm residents show up.
The first thing Lynne goes for is the bathroom. She slaps on her yellow rubber gloves, sprays the walls and floor with Lysol disinfectant and begins scrubbing away.
``This is not fun,'' she says.
Back home, Cori did all the packing. Making neat lists of what was in each box. But she might have gone a little overboard.
``Why do you need 17 pairs of shoes and 1,000 pictures? All you need is your brain,'' Lynne mutters, tossing a pair of Tevas on top of the navy heels heals in the closet. ``You know, I should take half of this home - she won't miss it.''
Home is seven hours away in Ewing Township, N.J. Outside of hockey camps, Cori's never really been away in the last 17 years. Bob and Lynne Hendon have come to help Cori settle in and then do something they haven't had much practice at: saying goodbye to their only child.
Cori lettered in field hockey and lacrosse. Helped edit her yearbook. Was a tour guide. Competed in Spanish competitions. Made the honor roll. Volunteered every year with the New Jersey Special Olympics.
She competed in national hockey tournaments, and her high school team voted her the ``best offensive player'' and created the ``unsung hero award'' for her unselfish team playing.
Cori is entering ODU's honors program and is planning to earn a master's in physical therapy in five years. She looked at Duke, James Madison, University of Virginia, University of Richmond, Davidson and Old Dominion.
Bob, who does educational testing, wanted to Cori to go to Brown, three hours closer than ODU.
``I would have kept her in the back yard,'' says Lynne, a kindergarten teacher. ``But that wouldn't make her a well-rounded person.''
Lynne picks up a Slinky, a Rubik's cube and a hammer off the bed and puts them on the desk.
``We've gone to every game,'' she says wistfully. ``It's going to be very strange for me, not to be able to be involved.''
They're not going to miss her. They've already missed her.
Bob drove Cori down to ODU a week early for field hockey practice.
``We plan to go to all the home games - it's only seven hours away,'' Bob says. ``It gives us something to look forward to each week during the work week.''
Cori isn't here. She's at hockey practice.
Bob lifts the mattress off the bed. Cori didn't think it was firm enough. So he made some 1-by-2 slats out of leftover tomato stakes he had in the basement. He places them diagonally on the springs.
Then he tugs the navy-striped fitted sheet on.
A drop of sweat trickles down his left cheek. The ends of his thin black hair are soaked.
Lynne throws Cori's teddy bear Ginger onto the bed along with Seymour, the gray seal her boyfriend gave her.
Then she attacks the dresser with an orange sponge.
She refolds each T-shirt twice before putting it in the lined drawers.
``Oh look - she brought this,'' Lynne says, holding up a framed picture of two little girls. ``Cori and her baby sister.''
The 18-month girl died of a congenital heart disease. She would have been 15 next week.
In one album she has 84 pictures of her diabetic cat, Cuddles.
``Notice there aren't any pictures of us,'' Bob says.
Lynne locks Cori's door. It's 11:20. She wanted to vacuum.
But she ran out of time. She has to meet Cori at the fieldhouse to say goodbye.
Lynne's brown eyes squint into the sun as Cori crosses the bright green turf to meet her mother at the fence.
``I'd kiss you, but I know you'd get mad at me,'' Lynne says softly.
``I am so sore,'' Cori says gripping the metal fence.
``Your room is a disaster,'' Lynne says.
``I know. We had a little flood in the bathroom last night.''
Then the bad news. The pain in Cori's shins might be a stress fracture. Maybe she'll be redshirted for a year.
``It's not fair, Mom,'' Cori says, brushing her blond hair back behind her ear.
Lynne walks back to the bleachers. Her face wrinkles up.
``This is unfair,'' she says. ``I can't let them know I'm upset.''
She can't talk to the coach. She can't cry. She can't hug her daughter.
She can't say goodbye. Not now.
So she goes back to Cori's room to finish unpacking. And wait.
She'll miss lunches and dinners, just the two of them. Going into the city to see a Broadway play. And this might be the first year they miss the Nutcracker Suite Ballet.
``It hit me today,'' Lynne said a week ago in a telephone interview. ``She's really not going to be here. For 17 years you have this person around and all of her friends, and now they're gone.
``You have this funny empty feeling,'' she said. ``You feel like your stomach is horribly upset and you're very empty.''
The day before Bob drove Cori down to school Lynne spent the day eating. Cinnamon Buns. Hoagies. Spaghetti. Ice Cream. Anything.
And cleaning. Vacuuming. Dusting. Scrubbing everything in sight.
She walked into Cori's room and looked around at the organized shelves, the floor not piled with hockey equipment and the neatly made bed. She burst into tears. It was too neat. Too ordered. Too weird.
Lynne vacuumed the floor for the first time since July.
Then she cleaned the rest of the house and put on her pajamas and pulled out her flowered journal.
Then she wrote Cori a letter.
It was 2 a.m.
Laughing with her Canadian roommate, Ashleigh, Cori runs into her dorm room around 1 p.m.
Her parents have set everything up all wrong, she says. The bookcase needs to move. All the shirts are in the wrong drawers. She needs more hangers. Where are the extra hangers?
Lynne asks if she could do a load of laundry for the girls.
``If I just sit here and don't keep busy I'll eat all the snacks I brought you,'' she says. Sitting against the sink with her knees drawn up, she munches on a pretzel. The Kix, Honeynut Cheerio's, Snackwell cheese crackers and Twix bars across the room are looking pretty good.
At 1:30 Cori leaves to meet her team to lift weights. Bob has to rearrange Cori's bookcase and desk and buy her books. Quarters in hand, Lynne takes a look around the room and leaves to hunt for the laundry room.
By 4 p.m. the books are bought. The laundry folded. And the room vacuumed.
Bob and Lynne give Cori a quick hug, stop at Burger King for a hamburger and then climb into their blue Camry. With the soundtrack to ``Les Miserables'' playing, Bob drives the whole way home. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot
Lynne, left, commiserates with her daughter at field hockey practice
when Cori learns she may have a stress fracture in her shin.
Bob helps Cori unpack after moving her belongings to Norfolk from
their home in New Jersey. She may have overpacked a little.
Photo
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot
Bob Hendon dumps the trash while unpacking daughter Cori's
belongings at her dorm room at Old Dominion University. by CNB