Today in my car, flipping channels because I’m not cool enough to have SIRIUS, I stopped on a country station and caught the tail end of Alan Jackson’s ‘Remember When.’ I have been in tears all morning…
Remember when the sound of little feet
was the music
We danced to week to week
Brought back the love, we found trust
Vowed we’d never give it up
Remember when
Remember when thirty seemed so old
Now lookn’ back it’s just a steppin’ stone
To where we are,
Where we’ve been
Said we’d do it all again
Remember when
Remember when we said when we turned gray
When the children grow up and move away
We won’t be sad, we’ll be glad
For all the life we’ve had
And we’ll remember when
I know my emotions have a lot more to do with last nights event. Michael and I went with Jackson to…Maturation Night. Of course he sat in front of us with his friends because he couldn’t believe how uncool it was to have both parents there. And no, I wasn’t the only Mom like he feared I would be. But from my seat on the back row, I was touched by all those squirmy, awkward, giggling boys. I have been teaching them PE since they were in kindergarden. Their Spiderman t-shirts slowly changed to skate brands and Nike. They have cracked me up week after week with their jokes about girl germs and farts. And now they are listening to a 70-year-old man tell them that in the next three years they will each become a man. I gotta hand it to this guy. Saying words like testacles, erection, and emissions amid all of the wiggling and giggling didn’t even phase him. My guess is that he’s done this a time or two.
The best part of the night was when he pulled out a little red sports car. He asked the boys what would happen if the good fairy handed the keys to this car to a 5-year-old boy. Probably not a good outcome. He then used that analogy to explain that Mother Nature gives the boys their “manhood” way before they are prepared to use it. And to be wise and talk to their parents as things come up. (no pun intended)
Back to my emotional state about all this. I sat across the breakfast table this morning watching Van, my 4-year-old. He was drawing on the table with the milk from his cereal, making up some nonsense song, doing what little people do. I just had to take it all in, all of the normal, insignificant details of the moment. Because next thing I know, he too will be turning into a man.
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