Preparing for an empty nest
By Ruth Schenk | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Rhonda Kletter cannot stop the tears from coming as she talks about how her youngest child is getting ready to leave home and go to college.
Kletter is thrilled for her daughter, Kristen Korfhage, 18, to have such an outstanding opportunity and would never dream of holding her back. She will be
a student at University of Kentucky this fall.
“I have always told my kids to take risks and live life with no regrets,” she said. “I want them to go after their dreams.”
At the same time, becoming an “empty nester” is one of life’s most difficult transitions for Kletter, whose son, Jared Korfhage, 24, also is on his own. He
graduated from U of L last year, and is getting married next year.
Kletter is one of millions of parents who deal with empty nest syndrome—feelings of sadness, depression or grief that parents or guardians experience
when their children leave home. It’s more common in women than in men.
Kletter said she feels she didn’t always make the best decisions while raising her kids, but knows she cannot change anything in the past. She
continually asks herself, “Did I do enough right?”
As she looks at pictures of her children, she finds herself thinking thoughts such as, “I should have done this differently; I should have spent more time
with them or I should have gotten down on the floor and played with them more.”
“Take time to enjoy them,” she said. “It goes by in the blink of an eye, it seems.”
Kletter finds herself turning to God more and more for peace, comfort and assurance that He will watch over Kristen and Jared.
“They don’t need me,” she said. “They are God’s children, and He just loans them to us.”
Kletter grew up in church, but was taught that God was a punishing God. She avoided Him for a long time.
While going through a divorce 14 years ago, she began to pray and seek God during her healing process. She began attending Southeast in 2007,
discovered a loving God and came to know that He would never leave her.
“No matter what happens, He’s right there with me, holding my hand,” she said.
Kletter immediately talks to God when she feels overwhelmed. If she is sad, lonely, panicked or confused, she does her best to look to the Lord and ask
Him what she should do. The answer she gets is always the same.
“Be still and know that He is God,” she said. “I ask Jesus to hold me and help me through this 24 hours.”
To fill the hours that she once spent at home with her children or taking them to activities, Kletter has turned to volunteering.
She helps with the Kentucky Humane Society, the Jefferson Alcohol and Drug Abuse Center, Lifehouse and the St. Vincent DePaul soup kitchen.