A year ago my first born strutted onto his high school stage to accept his diploma. He made that entry the same way he entered as a newborn--with great exuberance and just a bit of forced bravado to mask the uncertainty he felt venturing out into a new frontier. He then spent a year doing what I never could--living in the dorms on a full ride scholarship--the precursor epitome to the all-American dream; consisting of college classes, hanging with the dorm bros, and earning a little date change in a campus job. Now he is headed out into the world on an LDS mission.
Some have congratulated me for his success. I am perplexed by their comments. "Congratulations," they say while I eat cookies at his farewell. What?--I blink perplexedly. Then they say, "Your son has developed into a fine young man. You should be very proud." I thank them knowing that, except for volunteering half of his chromosomes (yeah, I’m such a hero), I had little to do with his success. Me, I just added water, stirred for a while and whallah!--I whipped off the white cotton swaddling clothes and there stood a whole-wheat, fully yeast risen and fortified golden baked loaf of a boy verging on manhood towering taller than his parents in more ways than his six foot stature.
So where did the time go? Yeah, we men verging on old-fogie-hood say it all the time and have heard it a billion times before it ever slips from our own lips. But it’s so amazing, befuddling and personal we you experience it yourself. Just yesterday my firstborn was a two year old toe-headed toddler who followed me around and gleefully mimicked my every move, including trying to do push ups and bloodying his nose. He ran the block with me at Ft. Lewis, kicked his soccer ball and often bobbed off to sleep in his seat on my mountain bike. Now he calls me old man and takes pains to make sure his hair isn’t combed in the same direction as mine. I look him in they eye and remind him he’s just a punk. And he is, as I am not in my prime, and we both stand at the cross roads, him looking into the future and me holding on to the past.
We took him to the MTC. It’s the antithesis of a military boot camp and instead of the foul-mouthed barking drill sergeants who greet your arrival, there are smiling, silver-haired elderly volunteers whose saintly demeanors and stern directives make you eager not to mess up--not out of fear but respect--and the concern of dashing their boundless faith in you. Soon he was signed in and we were ushered into a chapel. Once in, we were all sobered by a presentation that introduced the uninitiated to mission life. When it was over, the mission president urged us to make our farewell quick and to the point--like ripping off a bandaid--and thereby making it less painful, which suited me.
I am not a person who allows myself to get too close to others. It’s a flaw and defense mechanism I developed early when I thought it was the best way to bear life’s disappointments. It makes the partings less painful and tempers the joy of reunions. It smoothes out the extraordinary and bootstraps the commonplace so that everything is a nice palatable vat of gray. Yet still, with this event that seemed to mark the loss of a more innocent time, as I set adrift the boy verging on manhood, there was a touch of some undefined sorrow deep down in the core of my soul that recognized that a door was closing that would never be open again. I could only be thankful that I had had for a short time the pleasure of his company. As we parted, we hugged and said goodbye. Then he and his college friend left out an opposite exit door with the sign "Missionaries Only" to two years of celibacy and service. But this time there was no hint of diffidence, just the squared shoulders and determined jaw of a confident young man set to do what he knew to be true and good.
Instead, it was us who addled out of the chapel, with a bit of forced bravado to mask the uncertainty we felt in following from afar our son in his new venture beyond hearth and home with the hope that the citizens of Detroit would know what a good person and fine young man they were getting.
So, be safe, do well, as I know you will, and we hope to welcome the man we know you will become back to our home for a brief stay until embarking upon you next venture. Loren M.
No comments:
Post a Comment