There are days when home schooling just doesn’t seem worth the effort.  Wouldn’t it be so much easier to pack a little lunch box, tuck in a cheery little “Mom note” and send them on their way?  Then, a certain someone’s frustration over rough draft writing would be someone else’s problem.  I’d be spared the temper tantrums over the proper formation of a cursive letter t. It would certainly be cheaper, easier and quieter.  Just think of what I could do with an extra six to eight hours a day!  Some days, the big yellow bus has it’s appeal.  And then, there are days like yesterday.

I’ve decided that it’s a great privilege to be considered a friend.  To be found worthy of the effort and investment of heart and mind by other humans on the path is humbling.  To be included in the joys and sorrows, to be let in behind the fortress wall of another family, to be granted the great gift of vulnerability; these are things we do not deserve.  Sitting beneath a white tent strung with tiny seed lights, was gathered a community of friends and strangers, all drawn for the same purpose: to celebrate the life and achievement of David Wright.  Yesterday was his high school graduation.

teaching

I’m quite sure that we got the award for “newest friends” at this gathering;  we’ve known the Wright family for less than a year.  I couldn’t help but look around and smile at these strangers, the people who’d changed his diapers, ground his baby food, encouraged his first toddling steps, taught him to read, provided his first violin and suffered through that first year of strings with smiles of encouragement.  They were the folks who have sat beside him in church, year after year, who have explained the finer points of literary analysis, psychology and government, the people who’ve made their best effort to be as excited about physics and calculus as he obviously is and who are justly proud of his accomplishment, which is equally theirs.  David would not be the man he is (and for an 18 year old high school “kid,” I assure you, he is a man in all the ways that matter most) without their love, encouragement, self sacrificing investment or their long term vision.  This is a family, a community, who received a small baby with joy and patiently produced a man… and not just one man, but nearly a hundred if the number of teens and children in process were to be counted.  It was an inexpressible privilege to be counted among them.

Joanne & her boy

I couldn’t help but be encouraged by the words and blessings spoken over David, even as we laughed at silly songs performed by friends, haikus written for the occasion and aunts who stood to tell funny stories.  My vision was restored by my sweet friend Joanne, David’s Mama, who fought back tears all day but stood with a clear voice to admonish her son, one last time, and thanked him for the great privilege of an extra sixteen thousand hours, and change, that she’d been able to spend with him, the time surplus granted her as a result of their decision to home educate their son.  “Yes,” I thought to myself, “This is why we’re here.  This is why David is who he is.  This is what we’re slogging through multiplication tables and temper tantrums and messy science experiments exploding all over the kitchen for.  The privilege of the time.”  Every day is such a gift.

I spent the afternoon talking to the people I didn’t know: aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, the young man who played the opening solo from “Fiddler on the Roof” as his graduation gift to his friend, the old man who played a “manly” piece from Chopin on the grand piano as his encouragement to the boy.  I spent the afternoon watching and listening as this little community slapped the graduate, his parents and one another on the back in celebration of a job well done, a successful launch, “Let’s see what the boy can do!”

Valedictorian!

It didn’t rain, in spite of a dubious forecast.  No one cried, too much.  The food emerged from ovens all over the neighbourhood and there was more than enough to feed the 120 guests.  The kids played ping pong and basketball until it was too dark to see and Ezra appeared, drenched in sweat, to announce that he’d stolen the ball from one of the “big kids.”  David liked his hand knit sock, and laughed when I insisted he open his gift so that he could give it back to me… I haven’t finished the second one.  Beaming, he fingered the green and brown striped yarn,  “Mrs. Miller, this is the equivalent of computer programming to me!  My brothers tried to learn to knit, and I understand the basic concept of how the knot is formed, but how you make a shape out of it is a mystery to me!”  This from the guy who sat four hours with my husband on Friday and banged away and the essentials of iphone programming.  Knitting a sock is far less complicated.  Still, I accepted the compliment, as well as the returned sock, and gave him a big hug for his kindness and genuine excitement over hand knitting.  Then I made him swear on everything his mother had taught him NOT to put those suckers in the drier or he’d have Barbie socks in the end.

The camper is quiet this morning.  The children are sleeping off their late night.  I’m thinking about my extra sixteen thousand hours, times four, and what to do with it.  As frustrating as it sometimes is to wade through the spelling words and to be perennially responsible for everything from simple addition through advanced algebra, I wouldn’t have it any other way.  We’ve chosen this life for a reason, and yesterday I was reminded of all of the best reasons why.  Test scores and intellectual education aside, it’s worth it simply for the time, for the community, and for the investment in the things that really matter, that really form a person’s heart and soul.  I’m thankful for the gift of that time, the joy of all the ways we find to fill it, and for our community of folks, sprinkled across the world, who are our children’s teachers, mentors and friends.  This morning I’m especially thankful for the Wrights, for their steadfast friendship, their sunny disposition, for their mutual encouragement and for their fine example; may the work of your hands be blessed.