The Sunday in the Park

In April he turned 18 and on Sunday he graduated from High School. And although, for now, my baby sister’s eldest child is still sleeping in the same room he’s been in for 17 years, I know in my heart that he’s crossed the line into the future.

We drove up to Clinton Township on Saturday night. My sister Karen and my Brother (in-law) Steve met us at my mom’s for pizza. My niece Ali came by later for a visit. Jason was, of course, busy so we didn’t see him until Sunday morning when we were scheduled to leave for the graduation ceremonies. He walked in, dressed all in black with a red tie.

“Where’s Grannie, we gotta go” was his entry line.
“Why aren’t you wearing your cap and gown?” was all I said.

When I heard he was coming over to pick up my mom two minutes before his arrival I yelled to Brian to find the camera and I started to tear up. I imagined the little kid I held first in my thirty-something arms, then on my shoulders and sometimes, to my sisters horror, upside down and swinging by his feet.

His life flashed before my eyes. The water balloon fights that I won by hiding behind the gate with a loaded hose. The times he was young enough to tickle, when he was still young enough to yelp when I came into the room and run up and hug me. So when I heard he was coming over to pick up my mom, I thought of seeing him in his cap and gown and I started to cry. Then he walked in dressed in black. No cap, no gown. I was disappointed.

When we moved back to Michigan in Spring of 2000, Jason was just turning 10. He was still young enough to take for a haircut, to wait for his school bus, still young enough to teach him how to grow a tomato and how to eat Sorrel. The summer we spent at my parents’, before we found our house, we holed up down in their basement which doubled as a diamond for whiffle baseball. I was lucky to live in Seattle while my eldest niece Emily grew from 4 to 12. Now I was watching my nephew grow from 10 to 18.

The day had come for me to experience what parents do everyday, the passage of time through another. It hit my like a car meeting a brick wall.

The night before graduation, when everyone was in bed, I found a binder. It was a life book that Jason had put together for a school project. I paged through it and got a glimpse into the soul of my nephew. He wrote about a teacher, a coach, a friend who was in special education. He wrote how if he won a lottery he would give half of his money to a teacher who taught him through kindness and the other half to his Grannie who didn’t really need much anymore but deserved it anyway for taking such good care of him. He wrote about his mother’s light blue eyes and infinite love, the unfair ultimate horror of his grandfather’s Alzheimer’s, and what his dad taught him about the joy of sports.

During graduation day when he'd grunt and complain one minute and then come up from behind and put his arm around me the next, I thought of the binder, and saw the bright glint of his humanity seeping out of his 18 year old armor.

He graduated along with some 500 others at an outdoor amphitheater. It was a mad scene getting in. Jason was with us until we got inside the gates. We took turns getting my 84 year old mom to a seat. There were snapshots taken amid the hustle but I kept wanting it all to slow down. Like all the important rites we go through, I wanted time to stop so we could savor the moment. Of course it wouldn’t.

We got to our seats and time did stop, as it always does. Now we all sat quietly, except for the 17 year old in me which needed to entertain my niece, Ali. Eventually the crowd grew quiet, caps and gowns were seen on the ramps and Pomp and Circumstance began to play. 

“Look!” I said to my sister, “I have goose bumps”.

I looked over and my stoic sister was dabbing her eyes, which of course made me shut up, as it should have. But then I took a photo.

Marching in, Jason was all the way on the other side. Even with my zoom lens he was just one of many. Still, I was there with my family. My mom teared up too, “I wish your Dad was here” she said quietly. “He is here, right up there. I saw him in the scaffolding.” I told her. “It’s his wings causing all the wind.”

Jason took his seat, right up front. The only thing keeping him from a seat on the stage with the Summa was .01, one one-hundredth of a percent. My nephew graduated from High School with a 3.899 GPA. Because his school rounds down, (and not up, like the rest of us), Jay was merely honored with a medallion on a ribbon, a gold cord and the official distinction of Magna Cum Laude. And despite all the speeches and the wind blowing the caps of the graduates and their diplomas across the stage the whole time, he graduated and we yelled out his name and probably embarrassed him, not for the first or last time that day. I didn’t mind, I was so proud of him.

In my eyes he’s an auspicious miracle. Having Brian and me as uncles has apparently done no damage. He’s smart, he has amazing friends and he’s taller than any of us. Like all of our siblings' kids, looking on from afar as an uncle, I can see the brightness of their light and know in my heart that they will all grow to be wonderful adults. 

I am so very proud to be their uncle.

On Sunday, I saw a young man who has the whole world in front of him. All the joy, all the discovery, all the wonder the world has to offer.

I wish him all the happiness I have known and none of the pain. I wish him the world.

- - - Uncle David