Love and Graduation

“Is he your son?”

L and I locked eyes for a moment and then we both shrugged slightly and replied, “yeah, sure.”

We don’t really look alike. He has reddish undertones and mine are decidedly yellow. He is slim and I am decidedly fuller figured. I suppose if you just looked at the shock of wild hair or our toothy grins you could assume we have blood ties; I don't mind the assumptions. Our similarities require more than a passing glance. To see them you need time around a dinner table as we talk food, time around a map as we daydream countries we’d like to visit, time around us lounging and discussing the world and history and our place in both. 

L graduated from university this weekend. It was the second graduation of his I was privy to. And as I sat in the drizzling rain, waiting anxiously for his name and face to cross the big screen (the stage version too far away and tiny to make him out clearly) I held my breath and felt my chest tighten with pride - who knew that is what love feels like.

At lunch, surrounded by his family (a brother, cousin, and another mentor) we all talked and laughed and ate. L facilitated our conversation- we were strangers and he was the nexus point we all converged on so he requested we all share three interesting things about ourselves. We answered…talked about ASL and bread making and children.  And L looked content. Sipping his drink, forking fettuccine alfredo into his mouth.

When I talk about L I always proclaim, “I love that boy.” And for the last six years that has been correct. That terminology fit. But now, graduation behind him and a future with a million different possibilities flowing before him like river tributaries, he is no longer a boy. He is a man. 

The love is still there. I love that young man.

I am proud of him. Proud of this man he is becoming. Proud of the challenges he has already faced, is facing with compassion and fortitude.  And I am curious about his future…hell, his present. Over graduation lunch he proclaimed he was not thinking about the future because he wants to enjoy the moment. And so I pause now. I pause in my projections of what his tomorrows will hold and focus instead on the him that is in this moment. The him that is still celebrating his massive accomplishment. The him that sits in the liminal space between school and future. The him that hugged me tight and didn’t shrink away when I told him I love him, that he is a piece of my heart.   

The glories of his tomorrows will come and I will bask in them when they arrive. But for now…for now I am thankful for the man  I met as a boy who lets me dote, and nag, and love on him because, as he once told me, “I know you do it because you care.” And I do.