Sammy, Sammy Are You Ready?

Sammy, Sammy, Are You Ready?

As I was looking through family photos to submit to my son’s yearbook staff, I determined I was having one of those “moments.” I have a lot of them lately with the rapid advance of the firstborn’s senior year. They are near-breathless moments that rattle my heartstrings with the insulting yet triumphant fact that he is nearly grown and I am getting old.

The photos, a mixed bag of babyhood and grade school shots, provided a bit of time travel:

a newborn wrapped tight in a hospital blanket

our big yellow hound perched in ridiculous profile atop a teetering birdbath, boy at her feet

a grade school Easter egg hunter

a teenager poised for who-knows-what leaning into his silver sedan at dusk

Moments like these validate what I knew instinctively all along. Glimpses of our history together─ the laughter on the road, the tears over lost loved ones, the anger beneath the surface, the fear inside unspoken words, the love within every single embrace and whispered prayer─confirm that being a parent makes me deeply grateful for this life as well as a little shocked that children seemingly become adults overnight.

Years of transitioning from one stage to the next blend and soften the stark reality that photographs showcase with such bold and undeniable detail. Sam is now taller than his dad. He does actually hug his sister, willingly. I am grayer than his dad, proving his father has weathered the years far better than I. This may have something to do with the fact that sentimental activities like looking at old pictures only make him grin, while they thrust me into an exhausting search for lost time.

Although I want to cheer and celebrate the victory of delivering such a grand guy to the world, the overriding desire is to chain the kid to his bedroom and deny him free reign of his destiny.When did this boy who used to spend hours devouring the pages of Calvin and Hobbes turn into a man who talks politics, religion and the complex language of the NFL? When did he learn the ways of the sneaky old world?

These yearbook photos will go on a page that honors his accomplishments and congratulates him on his high school graduation. It’s become a popular tradition for parents to purchase a page and provide photos and a note as a testament to the fact that their kid is, well, theirs.

There is so much I would have liked to say on that page, yet I kept our parental musings short. But given more space, I might have reminded my male child of just how splendid life is with him as our son.

I would remind him:

Even when you launch yourself from this nest we made eighteen years ago, we will still be in the picture. We are that part of you that makes you know you are loved unconditionally, trusted to the depths of your soul and understood at the chromosomal level.

You have never walked alone and never will. We take immense comfort in the knowledge that your faith is secure and your purpose is centered on good works and gratitude.

Whether there is a photo of it or not, we can be seen in the way you choose a good book or take comfort in a good friend’s smile or dance like a fool simply because it makes no sense to do otherwise. Nothing is as liberating as being able to laugh at yourself. (I think I taught that one best.)

We will always show up when you think about doing something you know you should not. It’s called a guilty conscience.

We are there, reminding you that everything happens in God’s time, not ours.

When you see that stray dog, and wonder if you should pick it up, we are the ones who already have you on the side of the road, in the rain, Samaritan heart full-throttle. Mom and Dad, invisible, are in every moment that leaves you marveling over the wildly intoxicating beauty of life. Your smile in that photo is our smile, one way or another.

I have these crazy moments, yes. But they are opportunities for me to reflect on my handiwork as a parent, to cherish this gift of an adult child and look forward to what is yet to come. I need these moments to remind me that this is a good thing, growing up. I just wish I was as good at it as this boy of mine seems to be.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”─ 1Corinthians 13:13