The posters started off as fairly simple projects and then progressed to more sophisticated offerings complete with photos of him in his younger days and catchy plays on words. He loved them.
A few weeks ago saw the end of my son's high school football career. On the day before Thanksgiving, he played in his last high school football game on a team comprised of regional all stars. The very same all star team his father played on 33 years ago. In keeping with my ritual I had one last poster to send for game day and I wanted it to be a special one.
I had unearthed a photo of my son and his father taken at a practice right around the time he first started to play youth football. My son couldn't have been more than 11 or 12 years old at the time. The two of them are facing each other and my son appears to be taking his helmet off and his dad's hands are positioned in a way that tells me he was ready to help him if necessary. My son is barely reaching my husband's shoulder in height and his arms and legs look so small to me. He was just a boy.
That boy, just a few months shy of eighteen, played his last high school game on the same all star team and on the same field as his dad. Father and son. What a lovely way to conclude what was an exciting and emotional high school football career. The caption on that final poster was "The Torch Has Been Passed"
It has. That torch, and as I realize, many others have been passed in our recent past. This morning I took my son's daughter, my granddaughter, to her soccer match. Watching her warm up, I was thinking about how sad I am that my son's football days are over. I thought about how much I've enjoyed being involved in both my son's athletic pursuits and how much I will miss it. Without realizing it, when a ball got past her at goal, I found myself shouting, "Shake it off G!". I saw right in front of me another of "my own" to cheer on and support. I have the family's next budding athlete to encourage. Torches passed.
Thanksgiving Day, as my husband and oldest son stood in the kitchen carving the turkey while everyone else was getting seated at the table, my daughter whispered into my ear, "that used to be Dad and Pomp". Pomp being my late father and yes just a few years ago it was the two of them, my husband and father, who carved and brought that turkey to the table. Now it is my son and my husband. Torches passed.
Christmas Eve dinner will be at my house this year. All my life my parents held the dinner, replete with pieces of my mother's eastern European heritage. All of the generations in our family were present at the table, all four of them. My children always looked forward to this special night with wonderful anticipation. We exchanged gifts, sang and simply celebrated the best day of the year for us. Since my father passed my mother hasn't wanted to host that dinner. Sadly, it fell by the wayside the year he died but this year will be different. This year we will gather, all four generations, and celebrate together. We'll take part of our past and we'll turn it into something to look forward to in our future. Torches passed.
Things come and go in life, they're here and then they're gone, we're involved and then we're not, and sooner or later it's someone elses turn to do what we had once done and to be what we had once been. That doesn't mean what we have done and who we are has ended. That doesn't mean our time is over. That doesn't mean we're done. I think it simply means that it's time to allow someone else to step in and step up, time to allow someone else to add to what is now. Time to let someone else turn whatever it is into what will be.
Time to pass the torch.
Indeed
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