Hopefully all of this will look better in the rearview
You know what is really awesome? When you are just an hour into your horrific, five-hour drive through lower Wyoming and your son (the one you are heading to pick up) texts to tell you a friend whom he sat next to at dinner the previous evening just tested positive for Covid. This normally wouldn’t be a huge problem, but the next three weeks are big for us. There are two birthdays, scuba lessons, graduation, a graduation party at our home, and then a trip to Rome to board a cruise. We would really prefer to remain Covid-free. We kind of need to.
But, sadly, viruses do not give a flying fig about your plans. They’re jerks that way. So, Joe is going to be wearing a mask at home and eating and drinking and sleeping separately (even in the car on the ride home) until he gets through 10 days symptom free and with zero positive test results. Because a car is such a small, enclosed space, I might decide to wear a mask in the car even though Joe is wearing his, just in case the seal on his mask is not entirely optimal.
It’s possible Joe is fine. He was vaccinated twice and boosted last November. He had Covid in 2020. The same is true for all four of us. I know we are being a bit overcautious, but we are committed to doing everything within our circle of control to ensure Luke gets to attend his graduation in person. Keep your fingers crossed for us.
As we count down the days to our youngest’s high school graduation, the festivities are picking up speed. We’ve got plans for a small party for our son and his friends post graduation. There will be a tent campout soon for the future graduates on their school campus, which will be followed by the infamous and ever popular Senior Ditch Day. Prom is a couple weekends away. On May 6th, the school will have their annual Senior Signing Day, where the students share what they will be doing post graduation with their classmates and teachers. And then there is the annual senior Shakespeare production, which happens before the Senior Breakfast, graduation practice, and then the final hurrah at graduation. All of this is overwhelming and hard to keep track of as a parent, but Luke is so here for it. Senioritis is in full swing at our house.
This week, Luke and his classmates began with the senior pranks at school. Luke has been dreaming about this for years. YEARS. When Luke was a sophomore, he told us what prank he would like to oversee before graduation. As long as we’ve had Luke (going on 19 years now), he has been an aficionado of cute things. So it is very appropriate that Luke’s contribution to the senior pranks at his school would be cute. To that end, I give you Luke’s senior prank. A Deluge of Ducks.
A deluge of ducks
I’ll admit I was a little less than thrilled when Luke originally floated (from here on out there will be duck puns) the idea of amassing a plethora of rubber ducks to display in the office of the high school dean. He wanted 300 rubber ducks. I thought he was quacked, but I agreed to foot the bill. I mean, the kid is getting ready to fly the nest, so how could I make a flap about his wish? When the two large boxes of rubber ducks in various sizes arrived, I picked them up and waddled my way in with them and set them down. Luke didn’t want to put all his eggs in one basket, so he asked some friends to help purchase more ducks so he wouldn’t be in hot water with me. They took the ducks to school early Monday morning, gained surreptitious access to the dean’s office, and got busy. Thye were winging it and having a blast with the duck placement. Then Dean Wood arrived.
The reveal
There was quite a bit of nervous laughter as the kids tried to decide if they had ruffled the dean’s feathers, but it all went down just fine. No fowl response here. In the end, Dean Wood proved unflappable.
Sometimes it’s worth it to give into your kid’s whim when he presents an idea. Sometimes you just have to say, “What the duck” and give them some cash to help them fulfill their crazy dream. It might just become a fun memory for both of you.
Senior year for our youngest has flown by. I know this is how it works. Senior year is heartbreaking, expensive, and fast as hell. I tried to keep it together while standing there watching the photographer take his senior photos. I struggled when I had to compose his senior page for the yearbook. He applied to five private colleges (University of Denver, St. Olaf, Reed, Whitman, and Skidmore), received acceptances to all of them, and then committed to attending Whitman in Washington with his brother, which gave me a measure of comfort while still making me sad. With that decision made, I designed his graduation announcements. And today I created a graduation collage for display at his high school in May. Jesus help me. It feels like the universe is trying to break me.
I would like to think all of this is preparation so I can cry myself out before the actual graduation ceremony, but I know that is a false hope. Graduation is rapidly approaching. So I went ahead and made a countdown clock to the ceremony because I need to prepare myself. As of today, we are 60 days out, which means I have 60 days to cry myself free of tears lest I end up an ugly-crying, embarrassing, Alice Cooper look-a-like at the ceremony. I don’t want to be that momma. Luke deserves better.
I have a distinct memory of a time when Luke was around six months old and woke up in the middle of the night. I remember sitting with him in a rocking chair in our living room, rocking and waiting for him to drift back off to sleep. When Joe woke up in the night, I would get so frustrated about the sleep interruption. As he was my first and I was not used to missing out on sleep, it was a struggle for me to be present when all I wanted was some damn sleep. With Luke, though, I knew it would be my last time to hold my sleeping child, so I tried to focus on the moments, to appreciate that this little person needed comfort and I was that comfort. It’s such a different feeling now as I focus on my present moments with Luke because I know he is almost finished needing me. I suppose this is what drives the sadness I am feeling. We have come full circle, Luke and I. My baby is ready to launch. And although I knew this day would come eventually and have been preparing for it since Joe’s graduation, the reality of it happening now is something I’m not sure I would ever be able to prepare for.
So, perhaps, I will go to graduation and cry like the soft, mushy person I am on the inside because this too is part of the experience. I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to stay dry-eyed for it. I have to be there in it because there are only two constants in life, growth and change. Wait. I forgot taxes. So I guess that makes three constants. Growth. Change. Taxes.
I found this on Facebook the other day and it offers a different perspective of sadness:
So I am recognizing now that sadness is upon me. It doesn’t have to live here. It’s just here now. It doesn’t define me. I am not a sad person. I am a happy person with sad moments. And it’s okay to be sad sometimes. We’re meant to be sad sometimes. It means we’re fully experiencing what life offers. Sometimes we want it to be offering lollipops, unicorns, and rainbows, and it instead presents us with pain, overwhelm, and darkness. That is when we need to remember that if the sadness can be upon us, so too can the rainbows. I have 60 days to figure out how to find those rainbow-covered unicorns that hand out lollipops. If I can’t find one, maybe I’ll just have to become one. I’m sure the other parents would appreciate a lollipop at graduation. I think they’ve earned at least that.
Live Now and Zen 