Tougher than I Thought...

My oldest, Mike, starts high school next Tuesday.

I'm having a much tougher time with this than I thought I would.

For the past few months, I've been giving his mom a ribbing about her not being ready for her "baby" to grow up and go to high school. I've been asking her if she needs me to stay home from work that day to supply her with tissues and support for her tears as Mike embarks on his high school years. And Jen's been a very good sport about it. Maybe because she knows me too well and knows that I've been, well, full of it.

I'm the one who's having the tough go of it.

Last night was freshman orientation for the students and parents. It was time to pick up his schedule, help him find his locker and take a walk around and find his classrooms before he starts next Tuesday. And I as struck that I was a lot more nervous than he seemed. He was cool and collected, like none of this is a very big deal at all. After all, with sports practices and other functions, he's been in the high school dozens and dozens of times, it's not like it's an unfamiliar place. And we live in a relatively small town. Most of the students in his freshman class are the same ones who were in middle school with him. There won't be that many new faces.

Still, I remember starting high school myself and I was scared to death. I went from public school to a parochial high school. Most of my friends were headed off to Alan B. Shepard HS as I boarded the bus for Marist HS. I knew about 5 or 6 guys who were going to my school. And, at that time, Marist was an all boys high school. So the experience was going to be very different than what I had been used to. And as I've written here before, I was kind of an outsider in HS. Never completely isolated on an island, but never really part of one specific group or another. For the most part, I was OK with that. But, it did make for a lonely existence sometimes. I would never look back like some others and say that my high school years were the best of my life.

So maybe I'm simply projecting my worry onto Mike, hoping that his high school years are more fulfilling than my own. But Mike is so much more confident and popular than I ever was. He's an excellent student. He's a really good athlete. And he has a wide circle of friends. He tends to get along with everyone and everyone tends to like him. He seems destined to have a wonderful high school experience.

I guess my worry is more that I know we've entered the home stretch. From the day he was born, his mother and I have worked hard to raise him to be the best person he could be. I did my best to raise him to be a man of virtue, respect, intelligence, compassion and honor. And I see him turning into just that person. I couldn't be more proud of him (can you tell). And that's what scares me.

Michael is my son. He's my first-born. He's brought more joy to my life than he could ever possibly understand. But he's more than my kid. He's my very best friend. He's the guy I watch sports with and talk Bears and Cubs and Blackhawks and Irish. He's the guy I go to Wal-Mart with at midnight to get our copy of Madden 10 for Xbox and then stay up all night playing with. When I'm down, he almost always finds a way to pick my spirits up. He's one of the best people I know.

And he's growing up. And in the next four years, he'll begin to grow away. He'll become his own man, with his own interests. And we'll do battle, as he begins to carve out a life of his own making, as he begins to test the boundaries of his own independence. We're going to knock heads because that's what fathers and sons do. He's going to try and break away while I attempt to hold onto him with all my might. And I will lose.

I know that Mike will become a man and we'll have a different and perhaps even deeper relationship. But right now, I don't want to let go of playing catch in the yard or video games or of just kissing him goodbye on the forehead as he sleeps as I leave for work every morning. I don't want to give my little boy away to the world, because I know the world, and it's going to be cold and mean to him. And I hate the world for that.

I guess, most of all, I don't want him to grow up, because I don't want to either.

There's a poem by General Douglas MacArthur that hangs on a plaque my father gave to me and I gave to Mike that hangs in his room and reads:

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak; and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee -- and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these thing are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humour, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom and the meekness of true strength.

Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, "I have not lived in vain!"

Thank you for everything, Michael. And good luck, my son, as you begin the next part of your journey.