And So It Begins... to End

Tonight was the final meet of the regular swim season. That means my son is just about finished with his senior year swim career. We have Districts later this month, and if all goes well, Regionals and States will be the subsequent two weeks. But everything has about wound down, and I'm beginning to feel sad. Not a hopeless, whoa is me sad, just I'm so proud of the man my son is becoming sad, because I know his time to grow up and out of the house is upon us.

The night was filled with quite a bit of emotion. Senior Night was supposed to happen last week, but was cancelled thanks to Hurricane Matthew. I rearranged my Thursday night class, prepared my students, and then classes were cancelled anyway, also due to the hurricane. At the last minute, Senior Night and the accompanying meet were rescheduled for tonight. After all that, I just could't cancel another class. And that meant, though I vowed years ago never to let work come ahead of my kid, tonight I had to work. So when they celebrated the seniors before the start of the meet, and my husband and I couldn't get there on time, one of the other swimmer's mom escorted my only son down the pool deck. I could just cry thinking about it.

It wasn't all sad though. I shared my conundrum with my students, taught a half class, and let them out early. I rushed over to the pool and was able to at least see the second half of the meet, which meant two of my son's races. It wasn't a great night for the team. Most of them swam mediocre times, and we took few, if any first place races. We competed against arguably the strongest swim team in our county. But that's ok.

We ended the evening with a big cake and talk of plans for the district meet in two weeks. We were given a frame with a beautiful display of two team photos, one fun and one formal, and a photo of Jacob. He had a terrific and genuine smile, and just below it all his best times, including three school records. To say I'm proud is an understatement. Tonight one of his relay teams broke another school record! And I thought back to his freshman year, when the entire swim team could fit into two cars. Now, they are full fledge team. They can field two relay teams in a single race, and they have plenty of swimmers to represent Dunbar in the various strokes and events.

As we walked out through the pool gate for the last time, talking about where to go for dinner, Jacob came out of the locker room. "A bunch of the kids from the team are going to Steak n' Shake, and I'm going to go eat with them." We smiled and told him to have fun. One of the best things about this team is how great the kids are to each other and how much of a team they really are. I'm going to be sad as it all comes to an end.