 kmccarthy, Sat, April 5th, 2008 Seventeen-plus years ago, we missed parts of Christopher’s baptismal instruction class. So when we stood with the other two families at Our Lady of Good Counsel in the east 80s in Manhattan, and the priest turned to us first, we were unprepared. “What do you want for your child?” he asked. A million thoughts ran through my head as Chris held our 2-month-old who had finally dozed off after a crying fit that shook the rafters of the church where his great-grandmother had also been baptized. What I wanted were health, a happy childhood, peace on earth in his lifetime, a Harvard education, a nice wife, his dad and me to play with his grandchildren. “Baptism,” the priest announced, posing the question in rapid fire to the next two families, who either lacked imagination or had been to the class. They answered quickly. One of those wishes came true this week, as we hovered over Christopher as he opened e-mails from the final colleges he’d applied to. We had enough yeses in the bag to know he’d be going to a great college, but boy, these Ivy League schools left us in suspension. No, wait list, yes, no, no, then the one he’d been wishing for since his freshman year of high school. “Dear Mr. McCarthy, We are delighted…” It would be a few more minutes before we read the rest of the letter, but if you lived next door to us, you may have heard the whooping and jumping as we read Harvard’s response. We are still settling in to the news, and mostly, feel that God has blessed us. Our prayers of “Please God you know best, let him get into the college that will be right for him” turned to “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” said on our knees in the pews of St. Stephen’s church on a rainy Monday evening. One of the best parts about this is that our dream became Christopher's dream during his freshman year of college. Harvard is already part of our family; Chris went there and we were regular visitors as the boys grew up. So, walking the campus one day after a fall football game during Christopher's freshman year of high school, we could see girls check him out from a distance, and become faintly disappointed up close when his age became apparent. "Do you think people think Christopher goes here and we're visiting?" his then 12-year-old brother asked. As Chris talked about the school, I watched a look come over Christopher's face. "Do you think you'd like to go here?" I asked him. "Ninety libraries," he answered. "That says it all." So in the coming years we talked a lot about buckling down, doing your best, following your passion, and the very high odds against getting in. More than anything, we talked about reaching for the goal, but not letting it define you. "There are a million colleges in this country, and any of them could be exactly the right place to be," we told him. "Go for Harvard, but don't pin your sense of self-worth on acceptance." In particular, his father was clear that he didn't have to follow in his footsteps. "It was the best place for me," Chris told him, "but you should look at a lot of places, and find the place that's best for you." We've also told Christopher that he'll get some "oh, your dad went there," as the reason he got in. Maybe it helped, maybe not, but this is his accomplishment now. Christopher and all his friends, who have not spoken much about the whole college application process, seem to be grinning a little wider and walking a little more lightly these days. They are so lucky; no matter where they go, they have their whole lives ahead of them. Now my prayer is that God go with them and take them to the great heights we all know they are capable of. blog comments powered by Disqus  |
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