By Tom O'Malley
Buffalo, NY – Life is a series of good-byes. It is a long goodbye. When we were young we said goodbye to our childish games and put our toys away. We said goodbye to old friends, to parents, to brothers and sisters. One day we found ourselves sending our children off to school for the first time and we knew that our lives will never be the same. Even though the school was only a few blocks from home, a tender chord was severed that would never be sewn again. Good-byes are painful.
Good-byes are also a joyful and necessary part of the human condition. Today, my son Patrick is heading off to college in Washington. It is a big move for us, long anticipated, long dreaded. What do you say to a son as he sets off on his own for the first time? Where are the words of wisdom for this good-bye?
In his version of the Icarus legend, the Roman poet Ovid describes the fussy ministrations of Daedelus as he prepares his son to soar. The nervous father cautions Icarus not to fly too high as the sun will melt the wax that bind his wings, nor should he go too low, as the sea salt will weigh him down. Rather, take the middle way. The middle way is best.
Then, of course, there is the touching scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet, when Polonius is sending his son Laertes off to school. Polonius is something of a fool dressed in wise man's robes. He is not a model father. But he loves his son almost as much as the reputation of his family name, so he hastens to offer last minute advice while Laertes listens distractedly. Clothes make the man. Grasp loyal friends with hoops of steel. Neither a borrower nor a lender be! I never liked Polonius much, but now as I grasp for some wisdom of my own, I can sympathize with his tense affection at a moment like this.
In a more modern vein, picture poor old Simon Dedalus from James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Simon's son Stephen longs to fly away from family, country and faith on the tenebrous wings of poetry. Poor Simon. His son is a would- be artist and the father is as dumbfounded as if he were confronting a sacred mystery wrapped in an ancient tongue. He has no words for Stephen, and is in many ways glad to wave goodbye to this repudiation of his fatherhood. Simon seemed a giant not long ago. Now his awkward, failing portrait is painted in his son's disdainful face.
I stand shoulder to shoulder with all fathers who launch their sons off to the new world. Ready or not, here they come. It is a wonderful mystery. So much of parenthood is about investing for the future: a future that may never happen. And yet we invest with hope that the future will be kind to our children. So much of childhood is about dreaming for the future.
Patrick is ready to step from the safe threshold of home. And I am happy. He is not simply waiting for the future to happen to him. He is ready and eager to create that future.
And so today, I will not only think of his wobbly first steps, or of the way he fell off his bike until his arms and legs were bruised, Rather, I will cut those cords that bind him to my world and gently set him off to that new sky. I will not find the proper words in Ovid or Shakespeare or James Joyce. The words for this day reside in our hearts and have been spoken again and again for the last eighteen years. They were spoken when he wobbled away as a baby and they were understood when he walked back as a man.
Listener-Commentator Tom O'Malley is a teacher at St. Francis High School in Athol Springs.