Hannah Montana's gone ... And so is a little piece of my daughter (sob)

Miley

I'd actually not seen an episode for quite a while. So when I tuned in the other day to a repeat of the final episode of "Hannah Montana," it was a little like saying hello to some friend of one of my kids that I hadn't seen for a while.

I'd actually seen quite a few episodes of Hannah. When you have a daughter in that age group, a daughter who had the CDs, watched the show, even had a school folder or two, you just sort of get to know Hannah/Miley Cyrus.

But on Saturday night, when Miley labored over her decision to either go off to college with best-friend Lilly or sign on for a movie deal with director Steven Spielberg, I watched that final episode without my daughter.

Emma Murray

Emma, you see, has moved on. She's grown up a little since those days of sitting on the living room floor, eating pizza and Pepsi and watching what mischief Miley's gotten herself into this week. On Saturday, she was at a friend's house for a sleepover watching Twilight or playing Just Dance or talking about boys or doing whatever else 13 and 14-year-old girls do when they get together -- watching Hannah Montana, apparently, wasn't on the agenda.

But I watched. And as I did, I remembered something a former professor of mine, Marshel Rossow, once said ... He said that, when you're raising kids, one of the toughest things about it is that you never know when you've changed your last diaper, or helped tie your last shoe. Eventually, they grow out of those things they needed you for, and you never really get it back.

Saturday night was one of those Marshel moments. I sat there watching, wondering what Emma was doing, wondering if, were she home, she'd even care.

The series finale, in case you're wondering, was mediocre. Nothing special, really, other than it was 60 minutes instead of 30. It was the typical dumbed-down Disney junk. But at the end, as the credits rolled, they showed a montage of images of a younger Miley, her friends and all the fun they'd had during the show's multi-year run. That reminded me again of Emma, and of how another piece of her childhood, a childhood that has brought me more pleasure than my own, has slipped away.

I try and do my best to be there for everything, but as she gets older, it gets less and less cool to have Dad around, and the list of areas of her life where I'm welcome grows shorter. I know that, eventually, it will nearly disappear. I'm not ready for that day. So for today, I raise a glass to Hannah Montana, and plan to run home today, hug my daughter for as long as she'll let me, plant myself in her room until she kicks me out, and think of ways to make her smile until she leaves for good.