Transformations & Departures
The music in the background is a melancholy brass arrangement and it isn’t even all that good, a soundtrack to a TV show, but he mindlessly taps his fingers along to the beat. This has become the norm, a subtle instinct that has been nurtured over the last four years. An inner radar that alerts him to violins and trumpets, tubas and violas, seeking out the rhythmical and melodic.
Sometimes your children have gifts that are obvious from birth. A desire or talent or understanding that seems to come from deep within their soul and you can envision their future long before they can.
Not Max.
His early onset stutter made it hard to speak and so he was angry. A lot. His dyslexia made it hard for him to write or read so he was quiet and kept his emotions inside. He was overshadowed by his outgoing and over-achieving sister every step of his childhood until 9th grade.
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He emerged from Covid quarantine like the Sun coming out from an eclipsing Moon. He attended his first band camp. And although I know thousands of kids sweat and work during the summer, there is something particularly brutal about band camp in San Antonio, Texas where the daily temperatures routinely reach over 100 degrees, the humidity is high and you are spending your day on a black-top marching pad. I worried constantly about his ability to survive. It was my sister who sagely told me, “They go in as boys, and come out as men. Don’t let him quit.” And so David and I spent every night with ice packs, and bandages and wiped tears and encouraged him to not give up. The Seniors yelled at him. His Director yelled at him. His peers yelled at him.
And a story, as old as time, unfolded in front of us.
Within one year Max grew four inches, lost thirty pounds, got contact lenses and came out of his Freshman year a man. His ambition exploded, with him first achieving Brass Captain and eventually Drum Major. Music became everything to him. His conversations became harder to follow and he grew increasingly more frustrated with David and me as we were unable to hear the motif he was trying to point out to us, or couldn’t pick up on the bassoon in the background. Classical and Jazz music started to blast out of his bedroom. We had to institute “quiet hours” or he would practice his horn until 11:00 at night. He would talk to us about composers and play an endless stream of YouTube videos and audio clips all featuring symphonies or composers or university bands that he wanted us to hear.
Three years later as we swam in the pool, with the night sky full of stars and the Texas heat hanging densely around us, we quietly talked about his college plans. Would he pursue his interest in history? Maybe political science? What about law school? It was then that Max sheepishly admitted that the dream would be to get a Phd in music, but surely that wasn’t a possibility. No parent would want their child getting a college degree in music. David and I told him that if that was the dream, then he should chase it. With that one conversation we launched the second transformation of Max.
This past year, as Max has finished high school, he has taken charge of his own future in a way that you don’t see that often. He has hired private music tutors, sought out professors, asked for help, jumped on every opportunity presented to him, and generally pushed himself harder than David and I could ever have done. The result is that he will be headed to the University of Oklahoma in the fall on scholarship.
Max has outgrown this nest. He’s bumping into walls and boundaries and shakes his wings and flutters his feathers. He’s not just ready to fly, he’s ready to soar. He loves us, but he wants to be rid of us. He wants to be rid of the constraints that are pinning him to his spot, and soon he will be. And David and I will be one step closer to an empty nest.
