Mike is Growing Up

For those of you that don’t know, Mike is my son.  Parents sometimes (especially when they are teens) “forget” how old their child is, then something happens and you are forced back into reality with how old they really are.  Mike is 17.  I am not ready to admit/accept that he is almost an adult and has started to make his own decisions.  My journey of being thrust back into reality started with a damn scrapbook.

At graduation parties, is is typical to see a “growing up” photo album of the grad.  This was mentioned to me when I told a friend I was working to organize the boxes and boxes of pictures I have.  She mentioned the grad book, and I filed it in my brain in that far away, not gonna happen anytime soon folder. 

Two weeks ago, we attended a grad party for a friend of the family’s.  Sitting there next to the presents was THE BOOK.  And it hit me.  Like a thunderbolt.  Mike is 17, he will be a senior in the fall.  He will start applying to colleges.  He will leave home.  All of these thoughts were swirling in my head like a tornado.  I had to sit down, I got a little dizzy.

Eventually the tornado stopped and I thought about THE BOOK.  If I started it now, then I could go slow, selecting pictures and momentos that meant a lot to Mike, not just some photo album thrown together at the last minute.  I envisioned something he would enjoy and take with him into adulthood.  I started filling the book this weekend.  The first pages are pictures of him at birth, so beautiful and tiny.  I made it through his first Christmas and birthday alright.  I lost it when I came across a picture of Mike standing in a hospital room, al kinds of wires connected to him to watch his heart.  His arms were outstretched, showing the bruises, war wounds of his heart surgery the day before.  He was almost 3.  I remember the day the photo was taken.  Mike wanted to show off what he called his “special radio”.  I didn’t want to take the picture.  I didn’t want to remember that he would have died without this surgery.  I didn’t want to remember how he suffered the torture of multiple hospital visits, and all the pokes and prods and tests and x-rays.

I asked Mike, did he want this photo in the book?  Yes, he said.  How else would anyone know he was a survivor?  His surgery was executed through catheters run through his femoral and brachial arteries.  No scars, he said, just the picture.  It was at this moment that I knew Mike was ready to be a senior, to look for colleges, to be a man, and to be an adult.

So the picture is in the book.  Mike was right, it should be there.  If it wasn’t for that surgery, there would be no senior night, no SAT’s, no prom, no Michael.  I am so proud of his insight, his ability to think of situations differently than most.  I know that I will spend this summer preparing myself for all the activities being a senior involves, but I know that Mike is ready.