One Day, You’re Going to Be Big!
When Dylan was young – 11 or 12 years old – we visited our local high school. When we pulled into the parking lot, I had an idea.
“Hey,” I said, thinking that someday I would want this, “let me take a picture.”
I propped Dylan in front of the school, next to the minivan. With great glee and anticipation I said, “One day, you’re going to be big! And you’re going to GO to this school!”
Today, that photo popped up as a featured memory on my Facebook page.
I posted it two years ago – seemingly a lifetime – when I realized that Dylan only had two years left in high school.
But the photo popping up on Facebook today, of all days, couldn’t have been more timely.
Dylan’s high school career is now officially over. On Friday, Dylan got up, drove to school with Shane, and went to one class. After first period, he and the other seniors all just … left.
And that was Dylan’s last day of school.
It was his last time, ever, waking up to do the thing he hated most in the entire world.
He talked today about “senior-itis,” the very real feeling that there was no purpose in his attending school anymore, let alone doing any work. Dylan had senior-itis starting sometime in sixth grade, but he could only claim it for the past few months.
But Dylan made it – he didn’t quit. He didn’t skip school, do drugs, get caught up with the wrong crowd, deface school property or assault any teachers. He just bided his time – the equivalent of his prison sentence – and came out with a B average and acceptances to seven different colleges.
In other words, Dylan did okay. In fact, he did great.
Dylan got big. He went to that school. And now he’s done.
I remember that Dylan didn’t want to get his picture taken that day. “It’s not my school yet,” he whined. “And I don’t even like school.”
To Dylan, school was 260 days a year of agony. It was day after day after day of sheer pain. Day after day, year after year, he plodded on – and through – just trying to hang in there until graduation.
And to me, it happened in the blink of an eye.