College Kids

In another month, I will be attending my son's college graduation.  Sam is the youngest of my three, and his graduation will mark the end of my visits to these colleges that have turned my children into adults.  I am in Burlington now, having driven up here to both visit Sam one last time and then to take home as much of his junk as I can fit in my Jeep.  (I still do not believe he will get the rest of it home.)

It was warm and windy today in Vermont, and Sam and I spent a perfect day, driving out to St. Albans for lunch,  shopping for seeds at Gardeners Supply, packing the Jeep, having dinner in downtown Burlington, and watching Season 7 Episode 1 of Mad Men.  But in the middle of all that, we spent an hour or so on the front porch with his housemates, drinking some beer and enjoying the warm breezes.  These young men did not seem to mind that an old lady was hanging out with them.  They engaged in conversation with me, laughed at my jokes, and allowed me to reflect upon my own college years, so many, many years ago.

Although I had to ask for the name of the network to get wifi access, causing some embarrassment for the young man who had to tell me $&?<  #>  @$$, my time spent with Sam's friends was comfortable and entertaining.  These are good kids, in spite of their very creative drinking games.  They are good students, too, in the process of interviewing for jobs in their fields.  I am in love with their youth, their ambitions, their hopes for the future.

I suppose I am more sentimental than I might otherwise be, due to the fact that I will be sleeping tonight in the former bedroom of Ben, Sam's friend since his freshman year.  Heading home for Thanksgiving last fall, Ben was killed in a car accident.  Just like that, he was gone.  These boys all know that it could have easily been one of them.  And their mothers and fathers know it, too.

I last saw Ben a month before he died when I visited Sam in October.  While Ben cooked his breakfast, we had a conversation . . . about his future.  So, yeah.  You never know, do you?  Tonight, I will sleep in this room, the last place that Ben slept before he left us, and I will welcome a visit from him.  After all, Ben was just a college kid who didn't mind an old lady talking to him one October morning when the sky was blue and the leaves were turning and the promise of the future was so real you could taste it.