Around Town:

In June of 1998, we took our 17-year-old son, Andrew, to LAX. It was around 5 in the morning because Andrew was leaving on a one-way ticket to Maryland, to report for Plebe Summer at the United States Naval Academy.

He had no luggage, just two brown paper sandwich bags. One bag contained three sets of white underwear, like they told him to bring. The other was full of candy bars — that was Andrew’s idea.

For those who lived on the East Coast, it was an easy drive up or down to Annapolis to drop off a kid for Induction Day. For those of us on the West Coast, there were different choices.

A lady from La Cañada, the wife of a Navy captain, told us to let them go. Let them fly by themselves, the flight would be a good transition for them. Annapolis was a long way away from California. Above all, she cautioned the parents, don’t cry at the airport. The trip would be hard enough for them, she said, they didn’t need to carry their parents with them for 3,000 miles.

So there we were, at 5 in the morning, about 16 families, none of us crying. Some of the other kids had one paper bag. Our son had two.

And then, our sons and daughters began to board. Each of us, the parents, followed the advice of the captain’s wife.

Our family: Andrew, my husband Len, our daughter Rachel and me — we were in the middle of this long line of families.

Before 9/11 you could go all the way up to the boarding gate.

The line began to move and as our family got closer to the gate, I noticed something unusual. To my left were moms and dads with big brave smiles, as ordered. But to my right, as each boy or girl disappeared down the jet way, the parents began to cry. One family, a large family with siblings, parents, grandparents, they were all sitting on the floor, sobbing.

I saw this to my right, and I realized that in another second, our Andrew would board the plane with all the others. There I was, posed between our past and our future.

I tried really hard not to look to the right. I did not want to see my future. I tried equally hard not to look to the left. I did not want to see those smiles. It was a moment in time with the people I love the most.

Four years later, Andrew would graduate from the Naval Academy with the Class of 2002. He would be commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the United States Marine Corps.

Two years after that, he would be dead. Of cancer.

I do not fully understand why, but it comforts me to think back to that moment at the airport — poised between the past and the future. The day Andrew left home for Annapolis.

ANITA SUSAN BRENNER is a longtime La Cañada resident. E-mail her at anitasusan.brenner@ yahoo.com. To read more about 2nd Lt. Andrew Torres, USMC, and the cancer research in his memory, see www.andrewtorres.org.