Of Courage and Eagle's wings...

 One of my favorite stories in our family lore is that of my son's declaration that he would be an Eagle scout some day.  I remember the day vividly and have included the tale in a couple of entries here.  When he shared the goal with me, I remember thinking that when I was 6, as he was when he first articulated a desire to be an Eagle Scout, all I wanted in this world was to be a professional baseball player.  Let me tell you how that worked out - I didn't even letter in high school...

But Michael said he wanted to be an Eagle Scout and, true to his word, he just kept showing up and keeping up with the older kids until, after 8 years as a cub scout and then a boy scout, he stands at the edge of that goal.  The required merit badges are well under control and the capstone event - a required scout initiated, designed and led community service project - is upon us.

It has not been an easy path.  In all honesty I think we both would have to admit that.  In truth about 2% of all scouts ever achieve this rank.  As relates to me and Michael - I am a dad and he is a son.  Nature, it seems, has by design charged these relationships with a natural tension between the expectations of dads and sons and the performance by each party in relation to those expectations.

Now I freely confess, I am an idiot.  This revelation is not news to any who know me well.  My expectations of Michael, as a son, seem to be that he miraculously become a whirling-dervish combination of I.M. Pei, Vanderbilt, Zuckerberg, Teddy Roosevelt and Lord Baden-Powell.  He seems to expect me to be reinvented into a combination Pa Ingalls, Bill Cosby, Mike Brady, and Homer Simspon - the cool dad who is great with tools and self-reliance who is either always calm or, in the alternative, just muddling along brainless and happy.  We have had our fair share of struggles about the nature of hard work, goals, expectations and endless speeches about "grindstones."

In true dad fashion, I sit here reflecting on the really hard times and then have to face the realization that, despite the struggles and mutual frustrations, there has been on his part amazing achievement and incredible courage.

It is his courage that humbles me most.  Honestly - sometimes it catches me in private thought and I am moved nearly to tears.  Let me linger a bit on that idea - the courage.  His first ever camp out was a winter survival camp out.  At age ten and a half, having just finished his arrow of light and crossed over into the Troop, he joined the boys on their winter survival camp out when they slept in quinzees (a hollowed out snow-mound).  I remember telling him a hundred times he didn't have to go.  I recall saying "Uhh...look...this isn't cub scout camping...this is more or less "your-plane-crashed-high-in-the-Andes camping..."  Smile on his face, off he went.

After surviving that he mustered his courage to join the boys on a 38 mile back pack trek through the Montana wilderness, 2000 miles from home, on his 11th birthday. On that trip they crossed the continental divide at 8000 feet above sea level in 60 mile per hour winds.  He saw black bear and grizzly, eagles, fell in a river (from which he had to be rescued), and spent five days in the wilderness with nothing (almost literally) more than his pack and his fellows on the trail.

The following spring he completed his SCUBA certification and then that summer did 12 dives in 8 days in the Florida Keys (including two night dives on the second of which he had to recover his secondary regulator after his primary failed in 25 feet of water, at night, in the ocean, with two barracudas behind us and two sharks in front of us).  Cool as a spy, he replaced his secondary and just continued on his dive.  He was two days removed from his 13th birthday.

In addition, he soared to 2000 feet in a glider and watched as the tow plane pilot cut loose the line and then he and a glider pilot glided back to Earth.  He has skinned a rabbit, hunted, killed, cleaned and cooked pheasants, and earned several merit badges - including life-saving, first aid, and backpacking.

Thinking about his current goals, it occurs to me that along the way to all of these adventures; all that has been asked of him, he never once said "no."  At any time he could have shrugged his shoulders and said "you're crazy, I'm not doing this... I'm too cold, too hungry, too hot, it's too heavy, I'm scared, I'm mad at you, I'm mad at him, he hurt my feelings, I'm sick of this, this food sucks...etc."  He could have said any of those - I am sure he felt them.

But, the thing is, he never quit.  He is lucky enough to have a scout master who is truly one in a million.  Rugged and friendly; resourceful and generous in his understanding that not all of the rest of us can tie a knot or make a great shelter.  He is Michael's Eagle Scout coach and his legend is beyond that of heroic status in Castle Armistead.

But, it is in Michael - in my reflection of that wild eyed, energetic 6 year old and his innocent declaration that "whatever is the best in scouts; that's what I'm going to be!"- that is where I find the  gut-wrenching, knee-buckling lesson of courage.  It is a fact Michael is a better kid than I ever was.  He is brave in a quiet, steady way.  I was never once quiet and steady as a kid.

In my youth, long before it was ever shared on Facebook and attributed to John Wayne, my father once said to me "Courage isn't the absence of fear, Denny.  It is being afraid and doing what you have to do anyhow..."  That has been Michael's approach to scouting.  Just do what you gotta do anyhow.  Don't matter if you're scared.

I am sure Michael has been afraid some times over the last eight years.  I know for a fact this Eagle Project has him good and well scared.  He is building dug-outs for the local little league field.  The project has been approved and we are in the planning, budgeting, and building phase.  Lord willing and the creek don't rise - last season will be the LAST season those little kids cook in the sun while dodging foul balls without protective shelter and fencing.  It's a rocking great project for a boy who loves baseball, played on that field, and now wants to leave his footprint somewhere as an Eagle Scout.  I am immensely proud of him.

He is scared - it is a big project.  We do not have the expertise to build it ourselves.  We'll need help all around - funding, construction, craftsmanship...hopefully everything BUT first aid.  To his credit, though he has been a little reserved about some of the process; out of fear I suspect, he has never once said "I quit, I'm scared, it's too much, it's too hard, I don't want to..."

So, difficult as it has been some days because of the differing expectations between dads and sons, I am all in with him.  Like SCUBA, where he was my dive buddy for each of those 12 dives, he and I will sink or swim together.

I've created a gofundme site if you are inclined to contribute to his project.  He expects the budget for the dugouts to be between 1650 and 2000.  Every little bit helps.  Even if your support is to remember him in your prayers or to drop him a note - he will be warmed by those thoughts and gestures.  He is by far a better young man than I ever was and, at just a couple of months short of 14, has achieved in ways that are as ambitious as they are rugged and wholesome.  He is on the verge of seeing his dream come true; and I can't wait to see how all this turns out.

Thanks for stopping by my blog tonight.  I hope wherever you are, you can take into perspective the hopes, dreams, struggles and triumphs of those near and dear to you, and in that measure your hopes for, and love of, those people are affirmed and inspired.