A Toast to our College-Graduating Son
Our little baby done grow’d up and graduated. With a B.A. in city planning and urban design from Haverford College, and now a summer internship with the City of Philadelphia's bike-share program, he’s well on his way to realizing his incredible potential. But thanks to a clever 3+2 partnership with UPenn, he’s also already halfway through his Masters, so we’ll be back again this time next year.
Two college grads in two years. I feel such an overwhelm of pride, gratitude, recognition of privilege and good fortune, and immense wonder at how these tiny little babies have become such wonderful full-blown Men. I also think of a song they used to listen to (“Murder in the City” by the Avett Brothers), when a son asks his parents which brother they love the most:
A tear fell from my father's eyes; I wondered what my dad would say
He said, "I love you and I'm proud of you both; In so many different ways"
For Galen’s grad I wrote some effusive prose. This time around I felt more poetical:
This precious baby, oh lucky us!
Clingy whiny mama’s boy
Slow to trust, deep to attach, gentle gentle to love
This tenacious toddler, oh lucky Vancouver!
Relentless two-year-old on his big bro-bro’s soccer team
Unrestrained self-dresser
Sorter of jars and cutter of grandma’s shirt
This sparkling schoolboy, oh lucky Cowichan!
Crossing the rainbow bridge with “a shining light around him”
Hockey and hammocks and flowers with “the neighbours”
Earnest at violin and eager at drums
Farmboy and teammate and under-couch rager
This traveling ten-year-old, oh lucky Myanmar!
Homeschool with monks, indoor badminton with twins
Elephant rider and snake charmer and burping mud pit explorer
Cheek-pinched fruit-salad-buyer in the market, propositioned and paparazzied golden-haired lad in golden temples
This gregarious gringo, oh lucky Monteverde!
Baker and hiker and international footballer
Coffee house poet and bilingual actor
Toucan dissector and fig-tree climber
A bright orange flag unfurled
This avid adolescent, oh lucky St. Paul!
Debater at school and arguer at home
Saunas and sunsets and socially-distanced hammocks
Pushing the boundaries at Boundary waters
Ever a Joy of his people
This courageous college boy, oh lucky Haverford!
Waiting, listening, then diving into his calling
Purposeful planner, committed friend, devoted lover
Relentless networker and resilient illness-overcomer
Golden shoelace assister of everyone he touches
This, this and so much more this…
This is our baby, our boy, our college graduate!
Pride of his parents and gift to the world
This precious, tenacious, sparkling, traveling, gregarious, avid and courageous boy/man
Oh lucky world! Oh lucky us!
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Currently in...
Philadelphia, plus a week of hiking here in Virginia (home of Cooter's Garage)
Heading to...
Scotland, France, New Brunswick, Newfoundland. Please share any sites, people or ideas by email.
That is just precious. My heart is definitely overflowing with all of the love he has inspired in so many of us. 🙂
Beautiful post. Congrats to the grad!!