Memorial Day Thoughts(Pending Graduation Edition)

Last Wednesday was the last band concert at Warsaw Community High School. The last for our son, and the last for us. No more marching band competitions, winter programs, winter percussion, or spring concerts. Summer band camps and the sunburns that came with it are in the past, as well as those preview shows that gave us parents a glimpse of what the season had to offer. No more parades, Pierceton Days or Mermaid Festival, to stand alongside city streets to watch. The merciless sun of a June and August Indiana day boiling our flesh intermingling with the scent of grilling sausage and frying elephant ears nearby.

The boy graduates in less than a week and I’m still wrapping my head around that.

It seems like it was just yesterday I took him to the band meeting to figure out what he wanted to play in class way back when he was in the 8th grade. I wanted to make sure he played percussion. For one, he’d said that’s what he wanted to. And B, that’s what I wanted him to do. I felt like they’d kind of strong armed me into the oboe for our oldest when she joined. That, and renting to buy a $2,600 plastic oboe was also not cool. We didn’t have to rent-to-own a timpani.

There were the private lessons we got the boy into back in 2019. I knew Jason Davis through his recording studio and music repair shop. He also did guitar/piano/bass/drum lessons as well. It was a drive, but it was a cool place for the boy to get music lessons. And he seemed to catch on pretty quickly. Unfortunately, by February of 2020 our son was kind of struggling in school; wasn’t turning in homework, or even doing it in some instances and had just pretty much disconnected from school altogether. That and Covid made us stop lessons. He made it out of that year by the hair of his chinny chin chin, but quickly made a turnaround the next year.

I may not have been the most social band parent. Hell, let’s be honest I did as little as possible. I paid the band dues, we asked grandparents and friends to buy products when fundraiser time came around, and we took the boy to and fro to practices and 5am call times for competition days. And in turn one of us was waiting at the high school at midnight when the bus returned to bring him home. And of course we went to as many of the competitions as we could. The wife and I even turned them into date nights, finding a nice place to eat near whatever town the competition was taking place in.

But as far as mingling with other band parents that just wasn’t my thing. I was there for the kids, not to make new friends. As cold as that may sound, it’s just the truth. I appreciated those parents that took the time to help on competition days; hauling props and instruments to and from the fields and gym floors, feeding the kids, loading trailers and driving trailers hours at a time. I feel certain people are wired for that kind of service. I just don’t think I am.

I just never saw myself as that kind of band parent. I’m the guy in the stands supporting from afar, wondering how many more performances we were going to sit through before my wife said “Well are you ready?” “Only if you are”, I’d reply rejoicing inside of my head. My wife was in band, so she had a deeper connection to the performances and all the hard work that was put into it. I grew to appreciate all the work, and by the last couple of years I genuinely enjoyed being there and watching the kids do their thing.

It was also a pretty amazing feeling seeing our son grow within the band program. From being the short Freshman in the pit surrounded by giants, to shooting up to 6’2″ with shoulder-length hair taking charge and being the giant Senior to the Freshman. He became a leader to his fellow band mates, and he even walked away with two band awards on awards night proving as much. I know there was a time last year he was contemplating not continuing in the band program, but I’m glad that he did. He’s finishing his band career and high school career in general on a very high note. I couldn’t be more proud.

I’m sitting here typing this out a mere 5 days before the boy walks across the stage and accepts his diploma. It’s hard to put into words, the feelings I have swirling in my head and heart. It doesn’t seem possible that I’ve gone from a wintry first week of March in 2005 – holding a lump of a child that was my first and only son – to nearly the first week of June in 2023 getting prepared to watch that lump graduate high school. It’s inconceivable, mainly because I can still relate to that guy I was 18 years ago. I’ve changed a hell of a lot since then, but I can still understand that fear, love, and awe of that guy sitting up at 1 am rocking that newborn in the living room. The exhaustion, the wonder, and the yes, fear, of the unknown that just opened before me.

Yet there was also this ping of naive, Certainist optimism that things would be okay. Bumps, bruises, and maybe even a broken bone(an arm to be exact when he was 6) for sure, but all in all he’d be okay. And in turn, so would I. 18 years and three months on and that naivety seems to have come through. Where we go from here I’m not sure. Where he goes I’m not sure either. But I know he’ll figure it out. And if he has any questions about which direction to take, I’ll be here to give him an answer.

And if I don’t have that answer, I’ll tell him to ask his mom.