It was a while ago now that he came in to the kitchen and stood next to me where I was stirring something on the stove.
“Mom,” he said, “there are things about me that you don’t know.”
“You’re right,” I said.
He might have been nine or ten years old. I wondered at the time if he was harboring secrets. He had a fancy place to keep his money: a modified cardboard box labeled “Secret Agent!” in slanty, exciting letters, like something out of a comic book. It had a complication of flaps that closed over a plastic dial for which one had to know the combination. Everett had set the combination himself, and here his money was secreted away, where only he could get at it.
I appreciated that.
Still do.
Nonetheless, I pondered his statement to me for quite awhile. Was it that he was hiding something– or was it that he had just come to realize, awakening slowly into himself, that he was and is his very own person, unique and complete, no matter how close our family might be?
It’s fascinating– this whole parenting thing. We crow over them when they are newborn: they are our very own. So much to delight in, be proud of, even put on display. Darling nose! toes! Look at that hair! When William was a few months old, I caught myself being surprised when seeing a baby younger than my own. A younger baby? They are making those? I had had the Very Last One, you see. He was the Final Word on babies. The baby mold was broken. Why would you bother– why would anyone bother– having any more?
A friend confided years later how she felt when toting her newborn to church for the first time, glowing with motherly pride: “See what I made!” she was thinking– but only half-way.
Right?
We know when they arrive, of course, that they will grow up into themselves. That they are– even at the start– people, whole and entire, singular beings who are to be respected.
And we treat them as such– while we also change their diapers and bathe them, discipline them and decorate their bedrooms, choose their clothing and their playmates. Maybe even write blog posts or Facebook updates about them.
Until we can’t. Because they have become more of themselves than they used to be… or something.
When he turned nine or ten, I created a collage of fun pictures of Everett to put on my blog– a celebration of his life and year for the friends and family who aren’t local. It was adorable, but Everett put the kaibosh on it. “Don’t post that,” he said.
I deleted it. I was disappointed, of course, but it was the only thing to do.
We have rules about privacy in our house. All of the kids have it. But when it comes to Facebook, email, websites, texting– all of it is Fair Game. We can see it, we can read it. We will pry into their private affairs.
Because for the time being, it’s our job (still) to protect them. We’ve got to know what’s going on. While they are still here, under this roof, we have a job to do.
It would be dishonoring to them if we were to fail to do it.
Still, there are things about each of them that we don’t know. Things we won’t know, the amount of which will increase over time.
This is as it should be.
Today Everett is in Washington, D.C. with his class from Trinity School. It’s the 8th grade trip, a culmination of two years of American history study, and a last hurrah for these students who, in a few weeks, will many of them go their separate ways.
Everett is very definitely going to be going his separate way– to a public school along with several hundred other freshmen, none of whom are from his school, none of whom he knows. Yet.
He was really looking forward to this D.C. trip, and especially excited about the Air and Space Museum. He brought extra money for this, because he was told he could experience the flight simulator there and he’s all about that.
He’s experienced these days with flight simulators. Most of his “screen time” consists of practicing with them. He navigates his course from places like New York to Tanzania, or he plots a route from Juneau to Fairbanks. Just yesterday afternoon he was landing a helicopter in Guam. He wants to be a bush pilot. He wants to join the Coast Guard. He knows more about the physics of operating a helicopter than I will ever care to know– but he has also promised, someday, to give me a ride in one. Which will no doubt terrify me.
He doesn’t like to talk about it– and I respect that– but I don’t think these are easy days for Everett. For a child born of this mother, change comes lined with sadness. I don’t know how he’s thinking about all that lies ahead. I know from experience that he can’t know how the new school will shortly feel like home; how the difficulty of this transition, in retrospect, will surprise him; how good all (most, anyway) that awaits him will almost certainly be.
We are believing and trusting God that this will be the case.
Everett chooses to navigate this kind of thing– for the most part– in the quiet of his own mind. Which is fine.
But I’m thinking that I know something about Everett that he doesn’t know: that he is built more for adventure than he thinks he is. That he is equipped with so many gifts and the grace to grow into a new thing. That the life that is his own, that is unfolding sometimes before he is quite ready for it to do so, is going to be so exciting.
And already is.
Post script: This blog post was written with the acknowledgement and expressed consent of Everett.
