Every week or so second-year College student Melanie Arthur receives a package from home.
Usually covered in stickers and pleas to the postal service for careful handling, they bear maternal gifts and tidings.
For Arthur, each package serves as a reminder that her mother's love and concern transcends the distance between home and school.
But going away to college, whether it's to another town or to another continent, inevitably alters the relationships students have with the families they leave behind.
In efforts to keep relationships close, communication home often is key to the preservation.
In addition to the care-packages, Arthur talks to her mother on the phone every day. One of three children, she is the only one to have left home for college. Arthur's mother had an especially hard time parting with her only daughter.
"I had never really been away from my family and not even [spent] a day away from my mom," Arthur said.
For this reason, and despite the three-hour roundtrip from their hometown, Arthur's mother is a regular in her daughter's on-Grounds apartment.
"It was very hard for my mom," Arthur said." She had to have someone come with her to bring me back" to school.
While Arthur easily is able to drive the hour and fifteen minutes to and from home to Forest, Va., first-year College student, Nirupa Shankar must board two eight-hour flights to reach her home in Bangalore, India. The distance between here and home intensifies Shankar's feelings of homesickness.
"Because I can't see them [my parents] over Family Weekend, and the shorter breaks, I look forward to going home more," Shankar said.
Relatively local, the distance between Arthur and her family nonetheless is far enough.
"I wouldn't be able to handle anything farther away," she admits.
In their first year at the University, the countless distractions for new students often mask the effect of family separation.
"In general, people are so excited and so on and overlook that first year can be stressful. First year is not necessarily a good year," explained Robert Emery, a psychology professor and director of the Center for Children, Families and the Law.
The way students deal with this stress is different for everyone.
"Everyone has their own style," Emery said.
Communication is a common aid for the homesickness and transitional problems of many first-year students.
"For at least the first two months here, I called [home] two times a week and e-mailed everyday," Shankar said.
Encouraged by the short distance between Forest and Charlottesville, Arthur dealt with her initial homesickness with frequent trips home.
"Last semester I went home so much I never really adjusted," Arthur said.
In addition to homesickness, students face new independence.
Before this year, Shankar said, "I'd never been away from home in the 18 and a half years of my life."
Yet for most students at the University, becoming independent is only natural.
"It's almost a necessary change, at least in our culture," Emery said. "America is unique in our view of independence. In different cultures, there are different family ties."
Shankar recognized that, although in India many parents are strict and conservative in child rearing, her parents realized the importance of independence.
"They wanted me to expose myself to more things," Shankar explained. "They wanted me to become more independent."
Similarly, Arthur admitted that separation probably is for the best.
"I know I have to mature more and slowly get used to live away from my family," she said.
As a mother, Cora Valmores has a mixed view of her three children's independence.
"I wish they didn't have to grow up," said Valmores, whose son Philip is a second-year College student. "But I also have to understand that they have to be away to study. I have to be strong."
As first-year students leave home and enter the new and exciting world of college, their families are left to deal with their absences.
"At home, everything is there but the children - there are more reminders," Emery said.
With her oldest children long-since graduated from college, Cora Valmores was faced with the reality of a child-less house when Philip, her youngest, left for the University in the fall of 2000.
"When he left, it was different. It's lonely," she said.
In Emery's view, an empty nest is not entirely negative. It also can provide parents with new opportunities to improve their own relationship.
"Kids take up a lot of time," Emery said.
With more free time resulting from no kids, parents often are able to shift their focus from their children to their own lives.
Now that he's out of the house, Philip Valmores laughingly acknowledged that his parents' relationship with each other has changed - for the better.
"They seem to have gotten closer," Philip Valmores said. "They go on dates - they never used to go on dates before." Shankar's parents have similarly bonded in their newly empty nest.
"They spend more time together, they tend to travel a lot and develop hobbies," she said.
While Cora Valmores acknowledges that she now has more time for her own pursuits, she still wishes her children had not left home.
"Yes, you have opportunities to do things, but what I feel is I wish that they were not away from me," she said.
Confronted with these new emotions, time at home often becomes more significant than it was previously.
While at home for winter break, Shankar noticed that not only was she more willing to spend time with her parents, but that a new openness had developed between them that was stronger than ever.
"Sometimes spending time with [my parents] would take precedence over time with friends," she said. "After coming here, I tell them more. I tend to talk to them more about my personal life."
Siblings, in addition to their parents, feel the absence of a brother or sister at college. Emery said that this absence creates a "hole in their lives."
Yet he is quick to point out that a sibling leaving for school also is an example of achievement for younger children, and that it can be a period of great excitement, and at times, even relief.
When Philip Valmores' older brother left his home six years before he did, he was enthusiastic about the change at first. As the youngest, he anticipated more attention and less aggravation.
However, when confronted with his brother's actual absence, Philip's attitude changed.
"Finally saying bye to my brother, that was when it hit me and that was when I got upset," he said. "And since I knew what that was like, I wasn't so excited about my sister leaving."
Among siblings, absence often does make the heart grow fonder.
Shankar, whose older sister is a fourth-year College student, sees her relationship with her sister as much closer now that both are away from home.
Philip Valmores' relationship with his older brother also improved upon separation.
"He was more of a big brother than ever," he said. "He seemed to care about me more."
"The beatings stopped," he added, laughing. "And now when we're together we talk, whereas before we would just pick at each other. I haven't had any type of conflict with my brother or sister since they moved out."
For many students, family separation leads to a greater appreciation for parental care and concern.
"You realize how many things you took for granted," Shankar said. "You realize their work"
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