Last weekend our 17-year-old son drove to Birmingham, Alabama to help our 22-year-old son move his furniture into a new apartment.
I wanted to come along, but then wisely excused myself. I decided it would be better to let our younger son drive his Toyota Tundra to Alabama by himself.
I thought it would be good for both boys to spend the weekend together. For the 17-year-old, it was a chance to spread his wings. For our older son, it was an opportunity to build an adult friendship with his little brother.
Almost exactly five years apart, it was difficult for them to maintain a friendship as teenagers. The gap between an eighth-grader and a high school student is huge. Then the big brother went to college and there were 150 miles between them.
Lately I’ve noticed they’ve been texting a few times. When big brother comes back to Chattanooga there’s still a chance there could be a quick wrestling match. They have a shared interest in cars and woodworking so they always have tools to talk about.
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To say they are “close” at this stage in their lives would be an exaggeration, but I think it could happen over time.
I have only one sibling, a sister who is about four years younger than me. After a similar, disparate childhood, we became close as young adults. She lived in Middle Tennessee and visited me occasionally when I moved to Chattanooga in the early 1980s. Today she tells me that those visits long ago were some of her fondest memories.
Over time, we have remained close. We had lunch together recently and agreed that we have no connection with people who are estranged from their families. The love and support within a nuclear family is one of the great stabilizing forces in life.
As you can imagine, I was excited to hear how the weekend with the boys went.
I had warned our younger son to keep his eyes on the road. I don’t think he had ever driven for two and a half hours at a time, and I knew there was a risk that his mind might wander. I particularly warned him not to change lanes on the motorway without looking over his shoulder.
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“How was the trip?” I asked him when he came home on Sunday.
“Pretty good,” he said. “A truck exploded next to me.”
“What?” I said. I suddenly felt the contents of my stomach turning.
He quickly pulled out his iPhone and called up a video.
“At first I thought it was a forest fire,” he said, showing me video of a semi-truck with its cab ablaze. “But then, just as I drove past, it exploded.”
“Oh,” I said, and later learned – fortunately – that no one was hurt. This is what life is like for the boy outside the cocoon.
Later his brother called to tell me about his little brother’s visit.
He said they enjoyed spending time together and even went to a go-kart track where they competed for bragging rights over their victories.
Our older son remembered the “old days” when his little brother – now 6’1” tall – was always getting mad because he was too small to ride the really fast go-karts at the amusement park.
“This time he actually beat me (on the track),” our older son admitted.
I could tell from his tone that he thought this was a good thing, a clear sign that the boys were breaking childhood patterns and laying the foundation for an adult friendship.
When you reach a certain age and begin to feel the pull of your own mortality, it feels like the hand of God is on your shoulders as you watch your children grow closer together.
The Family Life column appears Sundays in the Times Free Press. Contact Mark Kennedy at [email protected] or 423-757-6645.
