Posted on

All About Emily

I usually go to great lengths to avoid naming the children in these posts. I call them by their numbers instead since we are not much into nicknames. Growing up as one of 11, you were lucky to get called your own name and, on occasion, my mom would just snap her fingers and you were supposed to figure out who she wanted in the moment. But I digress…

This post is about Emily. She graduates eighth grade this year. True, it’s not a milestone like college or medical school or perhaps even high school. It’s more like part of the normal growing up process and, in this town, the law. Still, it’s an event worth celebrating.

When her big sister graduated last year, relatives came. There was a party, a Mass, a celebration, gifts, cake. She got to see a Broadway play with mom and dad and the family’s favorite priest.

Emily got a sign in the yard.

She feels the slight the universe has dealt her and knows that others are celebrating the same way. She tries not to take it personally, but she’s a kid. She will turn fourteen in a few weeks and, like every fourteen year old, she is filled with hormones and attitude and excitement and wonder and hopes and fears and eyes that roll. She is excited about high school but nervous about going to clean out her locker. She is looking forward to new challenges in a new school, but hesitant about what school will look like when it reopens in the fall. Like all of us, she is facing a new reality that has yet to be defined and seems to change every day.

The sign in the yard doesn’t quite cover it.

Emily is the kind of kid that, at a young age, sought out the ones on the playground that had no one to play with and engaged with them. She wants justice for all and peace in our world, but will turn on a sibling who chews with their mouth open faster than anyone I know. She is helpful and kind, a good cook and talented student. She is social and bright and conscientious. She can also be moody as hell and can cut the room with a tone that gives even me the chills.

In the coming weeks, her mom and I will plan a party and family and friends will join virtually. We will toast her with sparkling cider and make her queen for the day. There will be gifts and a homemade cake and her school will do a special video with all those annoying baby pictures the parents hate submitting. We will do what we can to make sure she knows we are proud of her and this milestone in her life.

Most of all, we will pray that she and her siblings will soon be able to visit with friends, return to school unmasked, and maybe even go to the beach. It will take a miracle, to be sure, but we are people of hope.

In the meantime, let us collectively pray for graduates everywhere and for their parents who look for ways to make these rites of passage meaningful during these interesting and challenging times.

Posted on

Ace Number One

The eldest child graduated eighth grade yesterday, so it is time for some nostalgia.

She is the first born, my Ace Number One – nickname her maternal grandfather used for her mother that I adopted. She is an enigma – fourteen going on cynical. With humor like her father and a voice like an angel. She has her mother’s wisdom and the depth of character more often found in someone twice her age.

Struggling with “undifferentiated fear,” she, along with thousands of other young people, suffer from some anxiety her parents yearn to understand. Moved by her parents so her dad could take a job he loves, working for (as a change), someone he admires, we uprooted her after fifth grade and left behind the only school, home, and friends she had known. As she struggled to fit into the “land of entitlement” (her words), it was hard for her father not to feel guilty for moving her at such a tenuous age.

Then came seventh grade and a situation in school that still haunts us. An offhanded comment brought her world crashing down as a young teacher dropped the ball and a principal took overreacting to a new level. There are moments in a child’s life when parents look back and wonder if they could have done more to protect their child, and this is one of those moments. As an educator, I am often prone to side with other educators. I expect them to react as I believe I would act. I expect them to be prudent, caring, and honest. I expect them to put the child first. As long as I live, I will regret thinking these people capable of such maturity.

Still, we talk about the moment not defining us. We challenge the now-rising freshman to dream big. She is over the moon about her high school decision – the only child from her school set to attend Sacred Heart down the road in Hamden. She tried out for the fall play on Saturday – before graduating from one school and buying books for another. She is excited about meeting new people, making new friends, and starting over.

Finally, we see light.

When she was six years old, we were at Mass for Easter Sunday and, since not saying “Alleluia” in our house during Lent is a big deal, the children were anxious to sing it out loud for the first time in forty days. Mass began with the required, “Jesus Christ is Risen Today,” and even the “Gloria” was a welcomed delight.

Then came the Gospel Acclamation. For reasons passing understanding, the cantor and choir chose the worst version they could find – the dirgiest of dirges to sing. It was painful. It was lifeless. And the six-year-old knew it.

Closing her book and chucking it on the pew, she leaned over and whispered, “I wouldn’t get out of the tomb for that.”

So, yes, her standards are high. Her patience is low. But her faith is deep. Somewhere in the midst of all that unnecessary worry, all that cynicism she gets from me, the questions she struggles with about her own place in the world, there is a depth that amazes me. She does not suffer fools lightly, but she delights in the joy she finds on her own.

And now, she is off to high school. So, today, we look back on simpler times and are reminded that she has always brought a song into our lives.

If the clip does not load, you can visit it here.