It is my conference period and I am sitting at my desk crying. For once it is not because of something terrible that happened, or some new data thing we need to do, or some frustration over a student or procedure or this job, and not even just because I am tired and therefore fragile. I am sitting here crying at my desk because I just sat in the last ARD meeting I will ever have as a mom. I have cried at many an ARD or pre-ARD meeting, but this time it was again, not out of frustration or procedure, but the fact that the boy has done everything he needs to do and is going to graduate in ten or so days. William McMahon is going to graduate.
As a baby, Will took forever to hold a spoon and actually bring food to his mouth, and I joked that I would have to go to kindergarten with him just to be sure he ate. But I didn’t, he figured it out. In kindergarten, he wanted to play tether ball so badly but was so bad at it, the teachers kept him from it for his own safety. We put a tether ball pole in the backyard and again, he figured it out. I thought he would always just be friends with the kids of my friends, but in second grade, he figured it out and came home with a friend who brought a mom friend for me with him.
I thought that neither of us would survive his middle school years. Kind kids are an easy target for bullies and kind kids with bad eyesight who don’t play a lot of sports are their dream. It was hard and there was so much sadness and pain. Eventually, he figured it out. He found his people, he played his trumpet, and he did all the normal ridiculous things boys in middle school should do: talk about farts and boobs non-stop if I am remembering correctly.
Onto high school, to team sports, a brand new school away from his people and it was an adjustment. As he was attending the school I taught at, I definitely did too much the first year or two to make sure he could figure things out. He got there. And then COVID. None of us have any part of that figured out, even now. He got a job! He was immersed in a world of customer service and working with people who were not his peers, and he figured out how to do that while going to school and passing his classes. Not all three at once all the time, but enough of all three to keep going. Enough to get us to the meeting that showed he has figured it out and has me crying at my desk.
I always joke that this kid will live with me forever and I better move up north and get a house with a basement for him to live in. But I realize now that he will not. He will not always live with me. He has struggled and fought and figured out so much in his life and he is going to do the same as he moves out of high school and into adulthood. And all the worrying and pushing and fighting for him and holding his hand and moving him forward, well, it’s all but done. He will always need me to be his mom, but I see my role as advocate diminishing as he grows up and on.
This kid I thought would never walk or talk or use a spoon, or fall with his hands out to protect his face, or grow top teeth, or remember on his own to use deodorant, this kid is graduating high school with the grades he earned, with the friends he made, with the job he holds, with kindness still in his heart and eyes, and humor that is terrible and funny all at once. I couldn’t be more proud of this kid if I tried. I asked him if he wanted me to just be a mom at his graduation ceremony and sit in the bleachers with his dad, or if he wanted me to be a teacher mom and sit on his row. He didn’t even think about it and answered quickly “On my row, Mom” while giving me a happy smile that went straight to my heart. I think he has me figured out too.
