Yesterday, on my walk, I watched a couple of parents saying good-bye to a young girl in front of Coburn Hall at Colby College. The mother was going through her wallet looking for something to hand to her daughter. The father stood back a few feet with a look on his face that I recognized.

I had that look once when I sent off my own to college.

It's the look that the great bullfighter, Manolete, had on that hot afternoon in Linares a long time ago. He probably sat there in the dust with that look, the look that says, what the heck happened here? I was ready for this. I've been preparing for this. I've trained for this.

The father watched as his baby girl argued with the mother over the card. I'll bet he was thinking what Manolete was thinking, what I was thinking when I said good-bye to them. What the heck happened here, I was prepared for the last hug, the whispered, "I love you, daddy."

But he wasn't prepared for the quick turn-away, the wave as she ran to her new life. He was thinking what we all thought: What the heck happened here? I carried her home on her first day out of the hospital. I changed her diapers in the days when you had to wash them in a laundromat at three in the morning. I listened to her breathing at night and kept getting up when her mother did, so I could watch her being nursed.

This young woman standing there, just a few feet away, checking a list with her Capricorn mother, doesn't she remember the cardboard house he made for her from a refrigerator box? Doesn't she remember the pony ride that she was afraid to take, so he walked along side until she smiled and pushed him away? Is this the final push? Is she no longer afraid of the pony ride? Is she that brave, so soon, this quick?

I could hear him offer to help her up with that last suitcase. "No, no daddy," she said, "I can do it." But he wanted to do it. He wanted that last moment. Didn't she know that? He wondered if she had enough money? She said she was fine.

He wondered if she remembered when she used to ask for 50 cents, then a buck, then 20 bucks. I sat under a tree and watched them. I knew it was a private moment for them, but I couldn't look away. It was that look on his face. The mother turned and asked him a question. He smiled and shrugged that daddy shrug that says, "It's up to you," or "Why ask me?" Sure. Why ask me?

A boy came along. I couldn't hear him, but he was obviously offering to help. He shook the mother's hand, then the father's. He said something and the girl smiled and he picked up her suitcase. He was going to help her to her room with that last bag.

The father stood there, stunned.

That look was back, that stunned look that says, "What the heck is happening here?" It's Manolete sitting in the sand on that hot afternoon at Linares, Spain.

I prepared for this, he thought. All this way in the car I was ready for this. But it's too late. Sooner or later all fathers get gored by sudden good-byes but they don't die clean and neat and quick, like Manolete.

It takes a long time to die from such good-byes, because there will be many good-byes before the real last one, and you can't prepare for any of them.

Goodnight Manolete, wherever you are. For all the fathers in the world I can say, we know that look.

J.P. Devine is freelance writer living in Waterville.