There’s a small window about to open. As a family we’ve been talking about this “event” for a couple years, anticipating it like one might have anticipated the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens…though ours has a predetermined date attached to it. At the end of May our youngest daughter will turn 13, becoming an official teenager. The window opens. Three months later, at the end of August, the window will close when our oldest son turns 20. For a season, a brief one, we will have four teenagers in our family.
While this event has occurred in other families before us, thus not making it newsworthy elsewhere, it is a significant moment for us. And though my kids might see this approaching season as a great chance to celebrate something unique that will never happen again for us, for this mom, I find myself dreading the beginning of the end. Not the end of life, but the end of childhood life. Gradually, each of our four will pass from childhood to adulthood. Teen-hood seems to pick up our babies and escort them through this passage, delivering them at the end to the world of adult attitudes and responsibilities.
Officially, legally, my son became an adult when that 18th birthday arrived over a year ago. And some might argue that he is henceforth an adult in every regard and should have gotten off the Childhood Express right then and there. Though I am excited for him to arrive at that wonderful destination eventually, I’m also glad there is a period of a couple of “teenage years” at the beginning of adulthood.
Like the tide coming in and going out, we become aware of its intentions but see that it takes quite some time to achieve its goal. And sometimes, after several steady waves that show the tide is on its way out, one “out of sync” wave will wash up on the shore much higher than the outgoing pattern of the others, both surprising us and reminding us of the ocean’s right to be random in its steady approach towards its goal. If we’ve been around the ocean much at all, we know that occasional “out of place” wave is not an indication of a tide that is failing, but rather a normal occurrence in an organic system: systematic and yet not totally uniform.
As my son moves out, I’m glad that it is gradual, that his teen life disappears and then reappears again and again as he gently shifts to that goal of “adulthood”. Occasionally an exceptionally “childlike” wave will wash on our shores, and will startle us as we were getting adjusted to him being less and less a child. It races up and surrounds our ankles. Oh, the thrill to be once more, if only briefly, surrounded by his sweet youthfulness (even if sometimes it is the somewhat sour side of childhood immaturity). He is letting go, but it is a process – a process each of us has gone through.
Though "twenty" officially marks the end of my son’s teen life, and a window closes in our family, we know we may see that window re-open slightly, unofficially, to let in a few random waves. We won’t be fooled. We know which direction the tide is going and we’ll just rejoice in the pleasure of watching as it gradually moves out.
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