The Kiss

It wasn't the ceremony in the fieldhouse. It wasn't the small crowd of friends and family that gathered around our little patio furniture and politely ate really bad potato salad I'd made and pretty good burgers that I hadn't made. It wasn't the tassel or the robe. It was the kiss.

It was the kiss that did it for me. After I watched my first born walk like a solider up to get an empty diploma and walk away, single file into the rest of the crowd, I was able to grab a hold of him when it was over and... kiss him. I leaned up to kiss his cheek, a cheek I kissed a zillion times when he was younger and would let me. But, this time, the kiss was different. My lips kissed a strong jaw, sweaty from the waiting in line and was clean shaven. Clean shaven! I was kissing the cheek of a man. I felt very very humbled by that.

When did this happen? How did this happen? I know that one of the 3 or 4 long speeches today referred to this phenomenon, as a parent discovering how this happened, but, really, how DID it happen? It happened when I wasn't looking. It happened gradually, day after day after day. It happened when I wasn't paying attention and we were just getting by.

Oh, how I love him! I can't write words to explain how much I love him. He isn't perfect in the sense that he does everything right. But, he's already made the world a much better place, and he did it just by being himself. I savor time with him because I know that time is limited. I know that in a few months, I'll drive him off to college and leave him there. And then I'll be terribly sad. But, I am grateful that I have my daughter, too, to watch and help and raise.

But, it was the kiss. I'll never, ever forget the way that kiss felt. It was unsettling to me, how all at once, Sam had become a man, in the blink of an eye.