The End of Childhood
Nicole texts first. Then, five minutes later, Ben calls.
“Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
And before I can, guess, Ben blurts out, “Tom Brady retired.”
“I know. Nicole just texted me.” I say, impressed they both know at the speed of the Twittersphere. Mary and I still holding on to the printed page.
“This marks the official end of my childhood,” Ben says in a tone I can’t quite read. A little melancholy, maybe. A mere statement of fact, possibly. Something I’m sure to remember for a long, long time, definitely.
His words stand at attention. Command proclamation worthy of Duck Boat Celebration. Maturity revealed, and with it images project in my mind’s Kodak carousel. Replays of games watched and played, flickers of activity in and around our house in Roslindale, the four of us living through the turbulence of their adolescence. Ben now twenty-three, Nicole twenty-two. Each well on their way to adulthood. Still, the idea that one moment might define such a right-of-passage brings me both joy and sadness.
When I recount the conversation to my older brother Jim, he laughs.
“That’s great!” he says and then asks. “I wonder what the moment would be for us?”
“Great question,” I answer. “For you, it would have been picture on the cover of The Yale Daily, playing caps.”
We laugh about the various cringe-worthy college activities sure to have made our parents wonder out loud.
“This is decidedly not what all that tuition is for,” their bark.
I ask Mary the same question — about the moment that ended each of our childhoods?
“Ronald Reagan!” she says without hesitation.
“That’s it!” I agree. The day I too came to realize all is not what it seems. The impossible, probable. The ridiculous not only possible, but too often likely. Welcome to adulthood.
The year, 1980. November to be exact. I’d returned to Wesleyan after graduation for the purpose of creating a portfolio for an eventual move to Boston to start something, a life, a career as a photographer, a job, a chance to play a new new sport with some of its best young players.
Yes, November / December 1980 marks the end for me.
“He’s a joke. An actor.” I said of Reagan. Little did I realize how little it takes to get elected to highest office in this country, and how good The Gipper would look some forty years later.
Reagan’s election brought the realization that nothing would ever be the same. A month later, on the day I arrived in Boston, the sound of a single gunshot and death of John Lennon seals the deal. Ronald Reagan and John Lennon, two events separated by thirty-five days end my childhood the same way Ben’s describes his passage. Immediate and final. The news of Tom Brady mark his day, though in fact the last couple of years have fostered Ben’s transformation, from boy to man. Still, I’m moved by his statement and clarity. Both Ben and Nicole now on their own, making lives for themselves, each growing more and more confident with every decision and event.
Thank you Nicole, for your unflagging passion for all things Tom Brady. Keep the texts coming. And yes, Mac to the Future!
Thank you Ben for the painting the picture — yes the end of an era, but also the beginning of what’s next. For you. For us.
Thank you Mary for reminding me of our own wake-up call.
For the chance to reflect together, forward and back, always with the chance for be someone new.
