With A Shadow of A Dream...

Summer finally graced us with her presence the last few days in Northern California. Warm days have left me welcoming the end of the school year. We're not done here quite yet. My youngest will graduate on Thursday and he was selected to give one of the two graduation speeches.

Kyle gave his graduation speech three years ago. I gave mine 37 years ago. Oh my, that does seem like a long time ago.

But I remember it well. "With a shadow of a dream, there is hope. Where hope lies, there will always be a future..." I also remember forgetting the entire middle of my speech and not being able to find my place in my notecards. Fear struck me hard that June day and now I get to watch my youngest stand on stage on tell his classmates, their families, the teachers and administrators just what he feels about this young chapter of his life.

But last night was another graduation. Yesterday my nephew and oldest grandchild in the family graduated from high school.

I couldn't sleep at all last night.

We came home from the lovely celebration (where everyone toasted my wonderful nephew and his sappy Aunt of course cried) and I tried to engage Kyle in coming to watch one of our favorite summer series, "Royals Pains." He wanted nothing to do with me.

I am not sure if this was due to the fact that I didn't let him meet up with his friends at 11:00 pm and I wouldn't let him go camping in the Santa Cruz mountains with a bunch of his 17-year-old friends.

Since school has let out, Kyle has transformed back into the relaxed and happy-go-lucky kid that I know so well. But last night, the dark cloud of 'teenagness' reared its ugly head.

My sleepless night was filled with a mixture of, "I can't wait for him to go to college," and "I can't believe this time next year we will be celebrating his graduation."

After I finished watching "Royal Pains" with Tom we crawled into bed. Kyle said goodnight and then went into the room we had just vacated to play some video games.

I listened from my bedroom as he played. And it struck me that he just didn't wanted to spend the time with us.

I don't know why, but this broke my heart a little bit.

But I will lick my wounds today and hopefully Kyle will want to hang with me a little bit. And last night will be another memory.

Just like the memory I have of my handsome nephew picking strawberries at his grandparents home 16 years ago and reading to him about the big hungry bear and red ripe strawberries.