Edit 42: The Graduate

For Jackson

There are seasons of motherhood you recognize immediately while they are happening. First days of school with tiny shoes strewn around the door. Car seats and bedtime stories. Cub Scout badges and track jerseys and the years when someone always needs something from you before you can sit down with your coffee (or anything).

And then there are the seasons that reveal themselves in tender, indelible fragments.

A college t-shirt tossed across the back of a desk chair. Graduation announcements spread beside unopened mail. The slow accumulation of honor cords, sashes on a closet hanger and awards filling what little space is left on the walls and table tops. The realization that the sound of your child laughing with friends has suddenly become something finite.

I keep catching flashes of every version of Jackson at once.

The toddler years in Japan. Southern California sunshine and elementary school mornings. The middle school years back in Tokyo, where a trombone case seemed permanently attached to his shoulder, his shark hat atop his head. Train stations became part of everyday life, and independence arrived earlier than I realized at the time. Then Charlotte. High school. Friday night football games and marching band performances in Carolina heat. AP classes. Leadership roles. Friendships that helped shape him into the person he is now.

And now Syracuse.

Accounting and film somehow make perfect sense for him. Practicality alongside creativity. Structure beside storytelling. A future that feels both grounded and expansive in the way he has always been.

I still think about the Syracuse recruiter visiting during sophomore year and the quiet certainty in Jackson afterward. The way he said it just felt right. I wasn’t ready to hear that, neither was my husband, because as sure as he was that Syracuse was right for him, we didn’t think he could possibly know so quickly—or with such assurance.

But here’s a humbling truth: sometimes motherhood is realizing your children already hear the rhythm of their own lives long before we do. Trust me on this one.

Maybe that's what catches in my throat about graduation. Not the ceremony itself, but the layering of time. How every version of your child suddenly exists at once.

The little boy asleep on a train bench after long afternoons in Tokyo somehow standing beside the young man discussing international careers and college housing and what comes next.

The world sees a graduate because the world measures milestones cleanly. Tassels. Diplomas. Acceptance letters.

Motherhood does not.

Motherhood notices the half-empty energy drinks left in impossible places. The school quarter-zip hanging off the side of the bed one more time. The way a bedroom can already feel nostalgic before anyone has even packed a box. The faint outline on the carpet where a trombone case sat for years without any of us thinking twice about it.

And somewhere in the midst of it all is this quieter realization I wasn't fully prepared for: the child you spent years raising has become someone you deeply enjoy being around. Not simply because he is yours, but because of who he has chosen to become.

His steadiness. His humor. His resilience. His feelings. His curiosity about the world beyond himself. The way living across countries and cultures gave him both roots and reach.

For weeks the season moved faster than my feelings could follow, and now the calendar has caught up, and I am feeling everything.

My parents coming into town. Madeline returning home. Baccalaureate Mass. Senior Carnival. Awards ceremonies. Emails left untouched while life keeps moving around them.

One final band banquet tucked into the middle of it all.

Superlatives. Graduation cords. His marching band pin. A senior blanket folded into his arms to carry the memories forward.

And then the moment that completely unraveled me.

One of Jackson's band directors—who also led him for years in the Baby Blues Jazz Ensemble and shares his love of trombone—presented him with the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award, a national award given to one outstanding jazz musician per school each year.

For most people, that sentence may simply sound impressive.

But for a family with roots deep in New Orleans, where jazz is less performance and more inheritance, the moment carried something heavier. Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans. The music that shaped so much of our culture and history and joy has always lived quietly in the background of our family in one way or another.

And there stood my son, holding an award bearing his name.

I thought about Tokyo train stations. Carolina football fields. Middle school concerts. Late-night rehearsals. The trombone case permanently resting somewhere in the house for what feels like the better part of a decade.

And I realized motherhood is sometimes nothing more than watching invisible threads reveal how they’ve always been connected.

There is something both beautiful and disorienting about realizing the boy you once strolled across busy Tokyo intersections is now preparing to cross oceans and cities and seasons entirely on his own…

My heart. My aching, beating, joy-filled heart.

I thought I was writing about a graduation. But sitting here, I think I was writing about something better: the particular joy of watching someone become exactly who they were always meant to be.

And that is simply extraordinary.

Jackson, watching you become who you are has been the greatest privilege of my life. I love you. I am so proud of you. We are ALL so proud of you. You already hear the rhythm of your own life. You always have. So trust it. Always. We will be right here, cheering every note.