A Senior Moment on a Son’s 21st Birthday

by William Realon
(as published 3 years ago in MVP)

On time, we all have our own many ways of marking it.  As a former soldier, I used to measure time by the number of tours of duty, which usually run from 2-3 years at a time and each tour reminds me of personal significant events.  My son was born towards the end of my first overseas assignment in 1988, as the cold war was winding down.  Our daughter, a generation from Desert Storm homecoming, came along four years later on my second tour of duty in Germany.  My wife seems to have programmed herself to lay her eggs in the same nest.

After 23+ years of counting military assignments, somehow I have lost track of time.  Time has caught me by surprise as I first realized it when Kevin left for college three years ago after he turned 18.  On April 11, he will be turning 21 and that I guess is another significant milestone in marking time.  It is the age when one attains all the legal rights attributed to adulthood. Time has gone by so fast and I struggle to reminisce how much Kevin has grown up.

I could not forget, though, how significant the day and the place where Kevin was born.  My mother-in-law, half-way around the world from Hawaii, with her mother’s instinct, had called her daughter as she started to go into labor.  It was not until 12 hours later that Kevin came into this world, the same hospital where General George S. Patton, Jr. spent his last days after an auto accident in Mannheim, just outside of Heidelberg several decades earlier.  Three months later, I had dragged my family with me wherever the army sent me.  By the time Kevin graduated in high school, he has attended 8 different schools, which prompted me to finally hang up the uniform that I wore for over 23 years and still sorely miss up to these days.

In the US military, frequent move is inevitable; it is a fact of life that sometimes put a strain in the family, especially among young children who lose friends just as soon as they get to know them well. The most difficult of all – family separations, which account for most of the lost time between a child growing up and a military parent.   Some kids are resilient and they overcome with the help of mentors but mostly by ascetic mothers who devote all their time to their children making sure they stay focused on certain activities they love to do.  In Kevin’s case, he developed a passion for Tae Kwon Do and Hap Ki Do since age 5 that continued up to this day earning his third degree black belt before he turned 17.

As I look back, I remember him claiming, “It makes you want to do better each time.”  His triumphs as a  four-time Alaska state champion in his category, a bronze medal at the junior Olympics in Atlanta and his unsuccessful quests for a trophy in Orlando, Florida; San Antonio, Texas; the Dutch Open Tournament in Einhoven, Netherlands and many other failures have motivated him to do better each time.  His competitiveness in sports and his experience as a hospital volunteer and as a tutor for economically disadvantaged kids has taught him to transcend mediocrity in every undertaking that he does.  These had paid off by becoming a recipient of several academic scholarships upon high school graduation and admission to one of the better educational institutions in the US Northwest.

Now in his senior year at the School of Engineering in UW, I look back and wonder where the time that we as a family had spent together went.  It seems as though it just came by with the passing of the wind – so fast, so short-lived.  I couldn’t help but recall those nightly basketball games and practices, the high school cross country races, track and field, the holiday concerts in which he played, and those gut-wrenching Tae Kwon Do tournaments and dangerous hobbies of rock climbing and snowboarding.  I’m reminded of the constant fears and concerns for a 12-year old who spent 10 days in the wilderness with his group and kayaked the Yukon River from Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.  Not even the experience and mentorship from a former US Marine recon officer relieved those fears.  But all those times had passed; they are now just great memories that have marked the very short time between parents and a child who has grown up to spread his own wings.

Having witnessed how fast a child has grown has made me realize that the time that we sometimes take for granted is too short and it quietly creeps upon us leaving us with just memories.  This has taught me to learn to appreciate the little time that we have and has helped me mark the milestones of a child growing up.  In this regard, I look forward with optimism that the next milestone will even be brighter than the past because Kevin believes, “any endeavor is akin to running a race where the runner paces himself, realizes the obstacles ahead, recognizes when to summon his strength and knows where the finish line is.  He knows he will get there.”  That will be another significant mark of time.