End of the Marathon

Hi Everyone,
Just a quick note - This post is actually an article I wrote for our team newsletter last June. It had been a difficult year, as I was dealing with all the changes that would result from the our son's upcoming graduation from high school.  It is the first of two that I'll post related to this particular topic.  - Mark

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed

-          Theodore Roosevelt

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

                                                                        -     Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations

This has been a hard year for me.  The issue has had absolutely nothing to do with work or anything like that.  It has everything with the end of the marathon. 

My biggest problem is that I think way too much.  I’ve never been good at just enjoying the moment.  Instead, I spend time reflecting on what was, what is, and then thinking about what will be.  My wife will ask me, “I see the hairs on your head moving – what is going on?”  You see, the number of hairs up on my head are few, so she can track one or two – kind of like monitoring an earthquake – she says there a couple up there that she uses like a seismometer.  (Remember, she is an Earth-Space Science teacher.)  The more movement, the more concern she has over what is fomenting inside my head and what is going to come out.  Over the last 26 years, she has developed a pretty good feel for my moods. 

You see, I’m the type that enjoys thinking about what ifs and arcane things.  For fun I once spent a couple of days thinking through how we would have been impacted had the Saxon King Harold defeated William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D.  My conclusion was that we would probably be speaking French in most of North America, but Florida and the west coast, desert south-west, and all points south would speak Spanish.  Yes, I’m a history geek, and what is even scarier is I have friends who think like this, too.

So what does any of that have to do with a marathon?  Well, you see, our son, Ian, graduates in a few days from high school.  He will be receiving a standard diploma, and is already signed up to begin classes at our local community college in the fall.  **Author’s note - Ian wanted to go to the University of Hawaii, but his logic revolved as much around nubile young women in bikinis on the beach as it did on educational issues, so he was overruled by parental authority that does not plan on paying for a 4 month vacation in the guise of educational services.**

So, we are still left with the question, if you haven’t figured it out the answer already - What is the Marathon?  If you are a parent of a child with a disability, you will understand.  The Marathon is that slow, steady, never-ending push from the time your child starts school and doesn’t end until they leave school.  This includes that never-ending drip of stress, fear, concern, and worries that move through a parent of a child with a disability.  The never fully answered question of will my child manage to struggle through the always changing mix of classes, requirements, assignments, standardized testing, IEPs, impacts of the disability, and come out in a good place (whatever that may be for the child) on the other side?   There is always the personal second guessing of plans and decisions.  Are we doing the right thing?  Did we make the best decision possible based on the information at hand?  And of course, will it matter?

When the process started, the future looked like it would be an eternity to get to this point.  Looking back, the years rocketed past.  Now, I’m sitting trying to figure out what to do with that part of my universe that literally had become ingrained in its center.  16 plus years of public education stress is beginning to bleed off.  Decompression!  Who knows, maybe some of that hair on my head will now grow back.  There is that sense of what do I do next?   My wife is probably right – I’ll just find something else to worry about.  Tea prices in China have been rising – maybe I’ll look at that to fill the gap. 

For us, educational stress started when Ian was 23 months old, and will be completed when he graduates at 18 and ½ years old.  I can honestly say that not a single day has gone by where we have not at least thought about school and education.   From meetings and discussions, good feelings and bad, highs and lows, all of it has been rolling around inside our minds since the process started.  And now Ian is finally at the end of this race. He has gotten to the goal, and we are beginning to feel something we haven’t felt in years – the feeling of something truly important being accomplished.  A sense of satisfaction and completion of a major task in our lives has started to wash over us, and I think, too, a sense of relief.   My guess is the sense of relief will survive until college starts, and then a different set of concerns will be there.

But there is also, for me, a sense of loss.  This is a time when a sea-change is taking place on so many levels.  Preeminent of these is the transition of my son into manhood.  He is simply not a little boy anymore.  I am missing some of that already.  Ian will not be riding home from school with me anymore.  He will be in college, not here at FSDB.  No more track practices, no more meets, no more mornings waiting for the school bus, as well as a dozen other things that will end or change.  All of these things are things that have become part of our life since before Ian was 2 years old.  For me, that is hard.  There is a sense of loss, of something passing, of the end of an era in our lives.  For me, this is that looking back, and it leaves me a bit melancholy.  And it also leaves me extremely proud, thinking of all the roadblocks and struggles Ian has dealt with to get to this point, and how he has worked through them (mostly) without complaint, just getting it done and moving on.  When I look at Ian, and at other kids like him, I see a bravery and determination that goes far beyond what those of us without any issues can understand. Yet it is an element of these kids that they do not perceive.  It is just who they are and what they have to do to get where they want to go.

For me, there is also a huge sense of anticipation.  There is a feeling of standing up and looking at the horizon and seeing somewhere you that you have never been before, but need to go.  Ian is in this picture with me, and I already see him moving.  He has an idea where he wants to go.  His parents are there for him if he needs us, but on this upcoming exploration, it is far more of an independent trek, one where he is now reading the map and making the decisions.  I read somewhere that the best navigators don’t really know where they are going until they get there.  This may be true.  But now Ian will hold the compass, and set the course on the chart.   While I am excited and happy for him, and proud of his growing independence, I’m also a bit sad about it.  I’ve only seen my father cry twice in my life.  Once when his father died, and the day I got married.  I understand some of that now.  I guess I’m still changing as well.

I’m truly interested to see where Ian’s course takes him.  College is next, then, who knows.  Living in Hawaii is still playing in his mind for the future – Ian says it is the most beautiful place he has ever seen.  He talks of being a cartographer in the future.  But we will see.  Plans change for all of us.  This is now his journey.

One more trip awaits before college, however.  This is Ian’s graduation present.  He has picked our summer vacation destination and he and I have planned it over the last year.  I won’t tell you where we are going because that may turn into another article in a future newsletter and I would not want to ruin potentially good material.  Suffice it to say that in my mind I’m seeing this trip as a cross between the Lewis and Clark expedition, Dances With Wolves, Chevy Chase’s first Vacation movie, and Robin William’s movie RV.    Chew on that combination for a while.  My wife just shakes her head as we talk through the details.  She is going too, to keep us out of trouble….

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

                       -      Antoine de Saint-Exupery