Little boy lost

I lost my little boy last night. In truth, he’s been missing for several years, hidden beneath the gruff exterior of the teenager who has been living in his room and wearing his clothes, the phantom who slips in the back door each day and heads for the middle bedroom, firmly closing the door behind him.

I’ve lived in hope I’d see the little guy again. And every once in a while, I think I catch a glimpse of him, a brief peep from behind the eyes of the stranger as he puts his arms around me at bedtime and says, “Love you, Dad.” Or I think I see the child of my heart in the mischievous grin the stranger flashes me when we share a joke at his mother’s expense. Then the kid disappears again, and I’m left staring at the cypher before me, wondering if I saw him at all.

But now the little boy is really gone. He grew up and graduated from high school last night, and I’m left wondering whether he feels as strange and disjointed at the whole affair as his mother and I do.

It’s not that we didn’t have time to prepare for this particular moment. It’s been approaching us like a runaway freight train for months. And now the train has roared through the station, and we’re left breathless and disoriented.

I still remember, as if it were yesterday, crisp and clear, the startled yelp of pain my 8-day-old son gave at the decisive moment of his bris and my instinctive move to protect him before I remembered where I was.

I think about the 5-year-old who posed for a photo on his first day of kindergarten, jelly smeared on his chin and a goofy grin spread across his face.

I see the youngster coming off the football practice field cradling his right arm, a strained expression of pain etched on his ashen face, telling me, “It hurt really bad, Dad, but I didn’t cry.”

I recall the days and nights he spent shooting and editing the high school soccer team’s season video and the quiet pride in his voice when he asked, “Do you want to take a look at it?”

And I remember the day he told me he didn’t want to play football anymore, that he was afraid of getting hurt again, the memory of his 8^th-grade concussion on the first game of the season still fresh. My stomach knotted and a feeling of loss swept over me – not because I was reliving my own childhood through his, but because I so loved every second I watched him play. “Dad,” he said, understanding the dismay I couldn’t hide, “you always told me I was playing for myself, not for you, and that it would be my decision, not yours. Well, I’ve made it.” How do you answer that with anything other than a fierce hug and a splatter of tears?

I want the little boy back, but I will have to settle, like all parents must, for the young man he has become. That is more than enough, and on this point you will have to trust me, discounting for a moment the blurring power of a father’s love.

He is not without fault, of course. I can see that, even if his mother cannot. But most of my son's failings can be excused on the exuberance of youth, the nearsightedness of inexperience. Asked to provide a message to my graduate for display on the stadium scoreboard screen during last evening’s ceremonies, I offered this: “Be bold and brave. Be kind and loving. Be inspiring and creative. Be the man we know you are.”

He is all those things. And I think of that when the melancholy about the little boy gone almost chokes me and I fear my heart will break.