This coming weekend, Pam, Kaitlin and I will make
the drive to Princeton, New Jersey. The famous Westminster Choir will be in concert
on Sunday. Kaitlin will get to see Princeton for the first time, and we all
will get to hear this phenomenal choir for the first time. There will be a
morning of sight-seeing and good food. It will be the first time that all four
of us will have been together since July. Then, two weeks later we will be
together again for Thanksgiving. Sensational!
Last night I was reading A Moveable Feast while
listening to Ella Fitzgerald on Pandora, but could concentrate on neither. All
I could think about was how it seems like just a few months ago when the four
of us were crammed into a booth at Friendly’s enjoying sundaes after a day of
Little League baseball at Tuckahoe. Pam would be consoling Kaitlin over some
tough last inning loss, while I was trying to get Patrick to stop kicking his
sister underneath the table. It was my daughter who was the intense, brutal competitor,
while my son’s favorite part of the game was wearing the cool catcher gear.
In Princeton, we will sit around a much more sophisticated
table. The conversation will be of things literary and musical. Pam and I will
glance at each other in the midst of it with astounded wonder at what we have
managed to present to the world. They, after all, will one day be our
replacements. In more ways than I can begin to articulate, they will be a vast improvement,
not because we were such great parents, but because of something both fascinating
and ethereal, the constant visitation of God’s grace in their lives. Often it
took the form of talents, endowed upon them at birth, flowered into maturity by
skilled and loving teachers. When I consider the impact that people like Larry
and Diane Collawn, Sherri Matthews, Mark and Joanne Terlep, and Jeremy Welborn
had on the two of them, it is impossible to calculate. When I think of the
incredible people in the extended family to which they are connected by blood,
I realize that some of their success is indeed hereditary. No two kids on Earth
have been endowed with such a loving and supportive tribe of uncles, aunts and
cousins. Surely such love and acceptance helped sculpt their self-image as
human beings of value and worth. Whatever it was and however it happened, Pam
and I are two lucky parents.
Yes, can’t wait for the weekend. I’ll let you know
if Patrick kicks his sister under the table for old time’s sake.
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