Our son won a
music scholarship through a town scholarship committee. It was sort of
surreal because our long-time neighbor gave him the award. But she had
to act all casual and didn't tell us before hand. So it was a complete
surprise.
As
a researcher, I am naturally curious. I looked into the memorial
scholarship. It’s a memorial for a young guy who sadly died at age 20
back in 1989. I can’t really figure out what happened — I think because
newspapers were not online yet. His name was David John Nogan. I
did find that he died here in Connecticut, but he was born in Louisiana
where Will is going to college. And on his headstone are two carvings,
one of a guitar and the other a peace sign -- two symbols I associate
with Will. We’ve pledged to go and leave something at his grave site
here in Fairfield -- maybe Mardi Gras beads and flowers for
David John Nogan. We want to say thank you for the generous scholarship
before Will leaves for Loyola. But how weird is that? From one young
man at the end of his life, to another young man just beginning his.
From Louisiana to Connecticut and back.
Maybe everything just flows.
This is amazing!In the days after, Will received an email re: the scholarship as follows:
Hi Will,
I am the Vice President of Scholarships for the High School Scholarship Foundation of Fairfield. My husband and I were having dinner tonight at the Old Post Tavern and we struck up a conversation with a lady dining alone who, it turns out, is Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Loyola University New Orleans College of Music and Fine Arts. She grew up in New England and was visiting her mother who lives in Fairfield. I mentioned that we had given a scholarship to a Fairfield Warde graduating senior who was going to major in music at Loyola, gave her your name and suggested she look at your performance of Hey, Stranger on YouTube.
She said you should contact her if you have any questions before you leave for New Orleans and offered to help you adjust when you get there by introducing you to other students in your situation so that you can begin to build your network. It’s a great city to be a music major!
Just tell her that you are from Fairfield and that you were given her contact information by the lady who ate dinner next to her at Old Post Tavern. That should jog her memory. She was very sincere in wanting to help you.
Her contact information is:
Dr Serena Weren Phone: 508-865-2027 Email: sweren@loyno.edu 6363 St. Charles Avenue Campus Box 8 New Orleans, LA 70118
My friend Julie and I had a pretty funny conversation this afternoon, or it seemed funny to us. Through crackling cell phones we had a series of "old people" exchanges as follows, "I'm hot," I yelled. "What?" she yelled back. "I'm hot," I yelled. "What?" she yelled back.
This went on for at least a minute. A glimpse of things to come.
At the same time, Will, my son was trying to tell me something about his scholarship money from Loyola in New Orleans. Some extra financial aid had appeared out of nowhere. A gift from the heavens. Great. Fantastic. At last, we can relax.
Then I opened the mail. You, Will, have 8 absences, of which you are only allowed 12 in English for the entire year. Or you lose credit and I don't know, maybe lose your biggest scholarship opportunity at Loyola. That's $15,000.
I panicked. I got mad. It's like all the stages in Death and Dying by Kubler-Ross. Really panicking because it is frightening trying to get a kid into college these days and then figure out how to pay for it.
I'm trying to be Irish Zen like my friend Lou Lou Mulderrig or my other friend Mike Casey. Just breathe, take it easy and know everything will be okay. But that's not really how I tend to think. I tend to think the worst, predict the worst, fret about the worst case scenario that I know lies just around the bend. Until the worst case scenario happens, and then my thinking switches into another level of panic something like, "What if this is it?" I've experienced these moments under positive circumstances, for example when you see a landscape like parts of Texas and Louisiana, or pretty much anywhere on the Pacific Coast Highway. It's overwhelming, the feeling of smallness and finite and wow. This is really it. And sometimes it happens in an emergency room, when I see my son attached to tubes and oxygen meters. Or when the vet finds Daisy, our beloved Doodle, has swollen lymph nodes. Or when, or when. It happens all the time.
Bargaining kicks in. Dear god, I will do this thing, if you'll do this one for me. And the one thing becomes another, and another, until I would sell my soul to have one more chance. As I sit here thinking about how to tell Will that the absences in English could sink his ship, I try to also think of what I would say if I had one last chance.
"Dear Will," I hope I would say. "It has been my great honor and pleasure to be your mom. You have a kind heart, a wonderful curiosity, a strong body and voice, a magnetism that could work in your favor if used wisely, an oblivious in the clouds nature that I think has to do with the music in your head, crazy confidence, less than exceptional work ethic and organizational habits. You would give a friend your last dollar and way too much of your time, so choose them wisely."
You asked me today how Dad and I raised an awesome kid like you -- not your words but I won't repeat them because you're a teenager and sometimes you say stupid stuff.
I think your dad and I made conscious decisions about choosing each other and not making the not-so-great relationship decisions we'd made in the past. We avoided certain patterns that were not healthy for either of us. We also discussed up front very important issues like how to discipline, how to talk to you, what to do about media (or too much of it), getting outside to build strength, what was important for your development. Most importantly, and THIS IS SO IMPORTANT, we wanted to keep an honest, open relationship with you. So we made a decision early on that if you told us the truth, we wouldn't punish you. From what I've seen with your friends, this has sometimes been perceived as a positive and often times a negative. Some parents don't want to know what's happening. We do.
Full circle back to my typical worst case scenario thinking. You can't miss any more classes Will or you'll risk your scholarship, or worse, graduation. I'mseeing Poseidon Adventure scenes now in my head - the old one with Shelly Winters.
But what's really important is to put this in context. I need to spend more time thinking like it's my last chance. When I think that something is finite, when we're in the ER with you because you've been bitten by a dog, fallen down a water slide, are overcome by asthma, then I start to think clearly about what is important.
Dear Will. It has been my great honor and pleasure to be your mom.
(NBThis is one of my favorite videos of you singing at Greenfield Hills Congregational)
