Youth Group Sunday

 It happens.  It sneaks up on us.  One night we are rocking our babies.  The next, they are on the cusp of "grown." That's where KC is now.  And I am so.not.ready.  This was hard with Rob too.  But Rob wanted to live at home and train in to school.  KC has an interest (dance and film) that make that not the best choice.  He has opted for a gap year to spend time sorting this out and will likely be applying to Hampshire College in the western part of our state next year.  It looks like it could be fabulous.  He tours the end of next month.  

In the day to day living, I lose track of how close to grown he is.  His shoes still clutter the entry way.  He still has to be reminded to do things like hang up clothes or do the wash.  Yet there is so much that shows how much he has grown and hints at the amazing young man he is becoming.  

Today was one such day.  Yearly our church Youth Group does a Sunday service.  They craft the service themselves and put on the whole thing.  It is their vision, their words, their day.  This year the group had trouble pulling a service together.  They decided on a theme but covid protocols threw meetings back on zoom right when they typically do this prep.  With zoom fatigue at an all time high, it was hard to pull people in.

KC did though.  He organized most of the service, playing to the individual strengths of the youth group members.  He got them to agree to dancing a prelude down the aisle of the church. (thankfully the surge passed and protocols allowed for masked gatherings) He taught them a dance that had everyone in the pews standing and clapping along.  There were fabulous readings, reflections written and shared by the graduating seniors, one of whom was my son.  He not only wrote something, which was read thoughtfully and powerfully, but he wrote an original dance and did that as part of it.

I was blown away at so many levels.  The dance was amazing.  But if you zoom in you will see that he is wearing a necklace with a ring on it.  I didn't notice it at first, caught up in the movement of the dance.  But there was a place where he stopped and held the ring and looked up.  And then I saw it.  It is his Grampa Ken's wedding ring, gifted to him when he was very young by my mom when Ken passed.   Ken was a minister in our faith.  He would have been so very proud of his grandson and what he shared and the young man he is becoming.

I am not ready, but I need to do the work to get ready, because KC is.  And I want to watch him stretch, and soar, and reach for all that he envisions.