The Day You Went To LA
I didn’t cry when he came out of the womb or when he went off to college, not when the players laughed after he scored on his own team, or even that day he walked back to the Jeep after giving up the grand slam…but yesterday, at 6:18 pm, the Volkswagen packed with his jerseys, a basketball and a couple of blankets, 21-year-old Jack set to drive cross country to restart his life in LaLaLand, he walked toward me, gave me a hug, started to choke up…and I lost it. I hadn’t cried like that since the dog died and probably ever. It’s freeing to cry but it didn’t feel very good in the moment. I felt like Jack walking back to the Jeep. There was more finality at that moment than the thousands before it. Perhaps it is the impending distance, perhaps it’s that I know he’s searching, uncertain, hoping not to fail – still a bit lost – always my kid. There’s a point as a parent when you just realize …. for me it was last night when every ounce of joy, struggle, concern, pride and pause over 21 years built up into one blubbering mess. Jackie lost it too, probably because there was a finality to it for him too, different than the other times he’s left. Probably too because there’s a part of him who knows he’s stubborn, ambitious, worried, but knowing he wants to carve his own path. I see the kid who’s out back cutting the grass with the Fisher-Price mower, he sees the future. He wants to be 31, he always has. I just hope he tastes a little of his 20s first…Letting go in our lives can be cathartic I’m told. I suppose that’s right, but dear lord it’s painful when it sneaks up on you like it did for me last night. In healthcare where I work I guess there’s more letting go than seems fair. Too often we have to let go of a patient, a friend…a way of doing things. At work, sometimes despite all the hours, we have to just let go of things we don’t want to – a great client, a good deal, an unfixable problem, a long-time colleague. Sometimes, even after all the time and emotion, frustrations and growing pains, sometimes we have to let go of our pride and say goodbye to an idea. And yes, as my bride and I are learning real-time these days, sometimes as parents we have to let go of our kids. Let them make their own way…