My nephew Nathan graduated from high school a week ago.
I’m not sure how this happened, since it was just a few years ago he was toddling around my parents’ house at Thanksgiving, putting banana clips in my hair, banging on my grandfather’s our-of-tune guitar, or insisting we all chase him and try and catch his toes. (This game was called “Toe Monster,” and since I was not the foolish grown-up who made up this rather exhausting—and quite dangerous on a slippery hardwood floor, I might add—game, I often deferred to the adult whom I suspected did make it up, my mom, to give chase.)
Wasn’t it only a couple springs ago that he got a gash in his forehead playing basketball, and we all waited anxiously to see how bad the scar would be? (Hardly noticeable, it turns out.) And wait—surely it was only a year or so ago that the Irish step dancing recitals finally ended, right? (More like eight, my sister says.)
The problem I’m having with all this is not only that I don’t feel old—but surely I must be, he’s a high school graduate—but that I don’t understand where the time went. I thought he was going to be a toddler, then a little boy, then a bigger boy, then a tween, then a teen . . . a lot longer. But it all flew by. One day the kid’s having a birthday party at the Great Escape, the next he’s too cool to have his aunt jump into a tub of rainbow-colored plastic balls in front of all his friends. (Also, it’s not appropriate to call him “the kid” anymore—somewhere along the way, he turned into a young man.)
Thirteen years ago, I sold my island home and moved back to the mainland so I wouldn’t miss out on watching Nathan and his brother Evan grow up. There were baseball and basketball and Gaelic football games; trips to the movies and shopping and free tickets to see the WWE; boo-boos and legit major injuries and missed curfews and groundings (of which, being the aunt, I had no part of, but I could nod in sympathy when he complained). And every smile and tear and joke and eye-roll served to remind me over the years that moving back to the mainland was the smartest decision I ever made in my life.
My nephew Nathan graduated from high school a week ago. And though I’m still at a loss to explain where the years went, I couldn’t be more proud of him and the handsome, funny, charming young man he’s turned out to be.
I’m not sure how this happened, since it was just a few years ago he was toddling around my parents’ house at Thanksgiving, putting banana clips in my hair, banging on my grandfather’s our-of-tune guitar, or insisting we all chase him and try and catch his toes. (This game was called “Toe Monster,” and since I was not the foolish grown-up who made up this rather exhausting—and quite dangerous on a slippery hardwood floor, I might add—game, I often deferred to the adult whom I suspected did make it up, my mom, to give chase.)
Wasn’t it only a couple springs ago that he got a gash in his forehead playing basketball, and we all waited anxiously to see how bad the scar would be? (Hardly noticeable, it turns out.) And wait—surely it was only a year or so ago that the Irish step dancing recitals finally ended, right? (More like eight, my sister says.)
The problem I’m having with all this is not only that I don’t feel old—but surely I must be, he’s a high school graduate—but that I don’t understand where the time went. I thought he was going to be a toddler, then a little boy, then a bigger boy, then a tween, then a teen . . . a lot longer. But it all flew by. One day the kid’s having a birthday party at the Great Escape, the next he’s too cool to have his aunt jump into a tub of rainbow-colored plastic balls in front of all his friends. (Also, it’s not appropriate to call him “the kid” anymore—somewhere along the way, he turned into a young man.)
Thirteen years ago, I sold my island home and moved back to the mainland so I wouldn’t miss out on watching Nathan and his brother Evan grow up. There were baseball and basketball and Gaelic football games; trips to the movies and shopping and free tickets to see the WWE; boo-boos and legit major injuries and missed curfews and groundings (of which, being the aunt, I had no part of, but I could nod in sympathy when he complained). And every smile and tear and joke and eye-roll served to remind me over the years that moving back to the mainland was the smartest decision I ever made in my life.
My nephew Nathan graduated from high school a week ago. And though I’m still at a loss to explain where the years went, I couldn’t be more proud of him and the handsome, funny, charming young man he’s turned out to be.
Left: That yellow thing on my head is a banana clip. Right: Nate would not indulge me in a game of Toe Monster at graduation. Also, I am shrinking.
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