Vicki Courtney - Your Boy: Raising a Godly Son in an Ungodly World

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To my sons, Ryan and Hayden
A mother could not ask for two finer boys.
It has been a honor and privilege to cheer
you on your journey to manhood. I can't wait
to see what God has in store for you!

F or me the reality of motherhood did not come during pregnancy. Nor did it come with the It's a boy! announcement in the delivery room. The reality of motherhood came hours later when a nurse entered my room holding a freshly bathed and swaddled infant and said, Mrs. Courtney, your son is ready to see you. My son. I had a son. Her words somehow made motherhood officialmore than the positive result on the pregnancy test, more than the countless baby showers, more than hearing the heartbeat for the first time, or even feeling the first kick. When the nurse tucked my sleeping son into the crook of my arm with his tiny head resting on my beating heart, I could hardly breathe. I had carried this precious bundle for nine months, and now, for the first time since his grand entry into the world, we were alone. Just the two of us. Mother and son. I felt certain my heart would explode at any moment, unable to contain the love I felt for this child. It was a brand of love I had never experienced before.

The following day when my husband and I were preparing to leave the hospital, I almost expected the nurse to return with an announcement that the baby would have to stay. My husband later confessed to feeling the same way. We were so young and inexperienced! Didn't we have to take some kind of test or something before we could leave the hospital and be trusted with such an awesome responsibility? For heaven's sake, I had to jump through more hoops to get a library card! The feelings of inadequacy would follow me home. Did I have what it takes to be a mother? And not just a mother but a good mother? In the years that followed, the same questions would resurface from time to time, but they were overshadowed by my trust in God, the ultimate loving parent. You can do this, he would remind me in the silent places of my heart.

Veteran moms would encourage and remind me along the way, Enjoy it! It goes by so fast. Sure, I thought at the time, You probably never had to negotiate with a strong-willed toddler and convince him that apple juice poured into a blue cup will taste the same as apple juice poured into the green cup he is demanding at the top of his lungs. What course in college could prepare me for such realities? Interpersonal Communication? The colored-cup debate should have been a required lab. It took me having three kids to finally figure out the answer: smile, pour drink from blue cup into green cup, hand green cup gently to toddler, smile again, place blue cup in dishwasher, move on with life.

And yet, while time seemed to stand still in those early years, there were sobering reminders along the way that the clock was ticking. There was the first day of kindergarten when I dropped my son Ryan off at the door to his classroom. The teacher welcomed him and closed the door behind us as the bell rang. I was distracted by my three-year-old daughter who was hanging onto my leg and begging for a bicket from My Donald's (translation: a biscuit from McDonald's) and a five-month-old who was fussing to get out of his carrier.

As I stood motionless in the hallway, I sensed that it was a sacred, defining moment of sorts. As I looked through the rectangular pane of glass in the door, I could see the students seated in a semicircle, their eyes intent on what their new teacher was saying. I waited for Ryan to turn back so I could give him a reassuring smile and wave. He never did. Of course, I cried all the way to McDonald's.

Then there was the seventh-grade flag football game where he broke away from the pack on the last play of the game and ran eighty-five yards for a winning touchdown. I ran the entire length of the field along the sidelines, cheering him on all the way. After the game I was strictly instructed to make sure it never happened again. He didn't seem to mind my cheering before, but suddenly, almost overnight, my encouragement had evolved into embarrassment.

A year later, while chaperoning a school dance, I would be reminded again of the fleeting time when I watched my son slow dance for the first time. Worse over, he actually had the nerve to enjoy it! Yes, I was slowly losing my boy.

Today that baby boy is six feet tall and months shy of walking across the stage at graduation. He is a proud member of the class of 2006. While I expect to shed a few tears on graduation day, I am preparing myself for a day that will follow shortly thereafterthe day his dad and I will drop him off at college. In the meantime I find myself going back and forth between conflicting emotions. One minute I am excited for him as time nears for this ceremonial rite of passage. But then I will stumble upon a reminder of the days gone past and quickly be reduced to tears. His favorite stuffed animal, Bunby is stuffed deep in a corner of his closet. A picture of a bashful preschooler on his first day of school proudly holding his new Ninja Turtle lunchbox. A home movie where he is jumping off the couch wearing nothing more than his homemade Batman cape and white briefs. A tattered and worn copy of his favorite book Go Dog Go! by P. D. Eastman. I read it so many times I had it memorized. What I would give to read it just one more time.

It seems like yesterday when I held his hand as he took baby steps, and today I have to strain my neck to look up into his eyes. It seems like yesterday when girls were yuck, and today they are yuck-free. It seems like yesterday when he drove his Big Wheels tricycle around the driveway in dizzying circles with the dog barking behind him, and today he drives himself and his sister to high school in a Ford F-150. It seems like yesterday when I visited preschools, and today we are visiting colleges. It seems like yesterday when we were alone in that hospital room and I told him hello, and today I am preparing myself to say good-bye. Where did the time go?

And if you think for a minute that it is of some consolation that I will still have his younger brother (a.k.a. the baby) at home for five more years, think again. When I dropped Hayden (my youngest of three children) off on his first day of kindergarten, some of the other moms who were dropping off their babies headed to Starbucks for a round of celebratory lattes to toast their newfound freedom. Not me. I sat in my car and cried my eyes out for thirty minutes as I mourned the realization that a phase of my life was forever over. No more impromptu afternoon picnics or hikes to the fishing pond behind our house while his older brother and sister were at school. Over. Gone. And on to a new chapter.