Seventeen

My baby turned seventeen yesterday.  Of course, he hasn’t been a baby for a very long time, and yet, because he is my youngest, I can’t help but think of him that way.  Even now.  Even though he is six feet tall, doing math that is far beyond my comprehension, and creating a life in which he is increasingly, and appropriately, independent.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to know exactly where my sphere of influence ends these days, when to speak up, when to be quiet and remember that it’s time for him to be making his own choices.

 Yesterday morning, Jack drove his dad and me to our favorite breakfast spot.  The sun poured in, onto our favorite table.  We ordered coffees all around (he’s drinking coffee; I’m saying nothing), and talk turned to nationalism and liberalism and conservatism, monarchies and democracies (he’s taking European History). His grasp of these concepts was solid, and he was eager to share his new knowledge of how the past has come to inform our present (he’s got some pretty well-informed opinions).  I found myself listening carefully, learning things I hadn’t known.  Over pancakes and omelets, we asked questions (but not too many), had some laughs, got a pretty good glimpse of what’s going on in our younger son’s mind these days.

I’d written him a long birthday letter, for which I’d been mercilessly teased (I’m accused of going on and on in these annual missives), and so I’d already said how proud I am to be his mom, how glad I am that he’s happy, thriving, working hard in school.  So we didn’t talk about any of that stuff at breakfast, or make much of the fact that his sixteenth year has been a rather wild ride.  A year ago, his dad and I were really worried about him, and he was really mad at us.  He spent his birthday weekend at a friend’s house.  That weekend, I was half relieved to get a break from the fighting and half heartbroken that, for the first time ever,  we weren’t together on his birthday, blowing out candles and offering him our wishes for the year to come.  I did make a wish of my own, though.

What I yearned for a year ago was exactly what we had yesterday–togetherness, love, laughter, a solid sense of connection in the present and faith in the future.  In the afternoon, Steve and Jack hit some tennis balls–it was 70 degrees outside, tee-shirt weather–while I sat on the grass by the courts and read a book.  The two of them are well matched, but yesterday wasn’t about who could beat who, it was just two guys who love to play and who enjoy one another’s company.  I got to watch, and listen as they complimented each other’s best shots.  The sun shone.  My husband and my son played with the grace and good humor you’d expect from two good friends, but not necessarily from a teenaged boy and his father.  They whacked the ball hard, returned it again and again, reveled in their dance.  I lay my book down, kicked back, and closed my eyes, listening to the sound of the ball, the laughter.  Sometimes, wishes do come true.