Today, my eldest son, Gabe, turned 27.
It has been an eventful year for Gabe. Just a little more than a year ago, he became a homeowner (bought a fixer-upper down the street from our house). Little did he know then that in a year’s time, his little house would become “home” for his little family. On New Year’s Day of this year, he married Rachel and to that marriage and to our family, she brought Ethan, a little four-year-old snips-and-snails-and-puppy-dog’s-tails of a boy who calls me “Gramma Amy”. Oh, and somewhere in all that, Gabe switched from almost five years of employment in the airline industry to working for a company that makes medical implants and prosthetic devices.
What do I celebrate on the anniversary of the birth of my first-born? I think the thing I celebrate most is that the boy has become a man.
Gabe is a red-head. I never put much credence in the “red head, hot head” stereotype, but I have to admit that emotions always came quick and hard from the boy. Because, I believe, we are probably more alike in some ways than either of us would like to admit, there were plenty of sparks between us in Gabe’s growing up years. (Looking back, I know now that I could have doused a number of those flare-ups with the foam of kindness and a gentle word. I have acknowledged this to Gabe in the intervening years, and, thankfully, he is a very forgiving son.) The man is another matter. One of the things I love seeing in Gabe these days is the gentleness and patience with which he treats those he loves. He’s patient with the old folks, with his siblings, his nieces, his wife, and especially with the little boy he’s taken into his heart in his role as “daddy”. (Ethan calls Gabe by his given name, for that is how he first knew him, but, yesterday, when he was sick with a bad cold, his tearful wish for “Gabe” to be home from work so he could be with him told me that “Daddy” can go by a first name just as well.)
I mentioned the fixer-upper house. Even though it was a stressor and even though it took many helping hands to get the place ready to bring a bride and a little boy home to, Gabe launched in to really do some very nice fixing of the place. He had the great good fortune–blessing–of having a job as a teen-ager and college student working for a friend who mentored him in all kinds of handy-man skills. By trusting him to work along side at first and, eventually, some on his own, the man helped equip Gabe with the confidence that he can fix and repair and remodel things. With his handy dandy, do-it-yourself book to guide him, he took on tile installation, ceramic tile installation, and a lot of other projects that I probably don’t even know about. He’s not afraid to try and he has this great desire to make the house a place that can become a home.
A man is wired to protect and shelter. There is no where this ties in more closely than in the realm of spiritual nurturing. When Gabe first became serious about Rachel, one thing I’ll always remember is his out-loud musings about and recognition of the huge responsibility that would mean spiritually. It takes a man to humbly recognize that that is a God-sized task that cannot be done on one’s own.
In spite of the things I see these days that make me smile at the man my son has become, one thing hasn’t changed from the little boy days and that, too, makes me smile. This boy-grown-to-man still loves to have fun. (We always teased him that his middle name should have been “Fun”.) That bent is a wonderful asset in the family life Gabe has chosen. I love to hear him and Rachel laugh together. I love to see him delight in Ethan’s delight over something fun they plan to do together.
We wondered for what God had gifted the little boy. The answers are unfolding more and more everyday as we see the boy morphing into the man.
Happy Birthday, My Son. This mom is awfully proud of you–proud of the man you’ve become.
Through Changing Eyes 