Sam, Crazy Fiction Writer

Our son, Sam, is about to graduate high school.  It is such a strange feeling!  When I was expecting Sam, Mike and I realized that by the time the baby I was carrying graduated high school, we'd  have been raising children for 30 years!  That seemed like it would be such a long time, but here we are already.  How did that happen so quickly?

The other night we attended a senior awards night at his school.  Sam didn't want to go but that was no surprise.  He also doesn't want to go to his own graduation.  We are still parenting, though, and we aren't offering options in these two situations.

We'd forced Sam to attend a similiar ceremony when he was finishing his years at Jr. High.  We'd known he was being honored with one award then, but it turned out he was called up to the stage 5 times!  The award that night that was most special to us as parents was when he received the "Kindness Award".  This was a position voted on by parents and students alike.  Before they announced the name, as they were giving the description, I remember thinking that it sounded like an award Sam should win!  Sam had been out of school the day they'd done this voting and knew nothing about it.  He seemed a bit distressed by it, probably thinking this award lowered his "cool" status or something.  We loved it!

So, we went to awards night.  Mike and I graduated from a class of 13.  We knew everyone, their families and their friends.  For us, it was rare to attend any school function and spot a stranger.  At this ceremony for the seniors, there were hundreds of people that didn't even look familiar.  I wish our kids could have attended a smaller school.  No, I don't say that just because these ceremonies would've been a LOT shorter with fewer kids to honor!  Well, maybe that is a little bit of that wish...

Sam had to make the long walk to the stage to receive recognition for a scholarship he was receiving.  We'd known about that ahead and were grateful for it.  The fun was when they started to do "in house" awards.  A presenter would tell the name of an award and a bit about how the decision was made as to who should receive the award.  In most cases it seemed to be the teachers who chose the recipients.  There were quite a few awards for things such as "Spirit" and "Quiet Inspiration".  Since Sam didn't like to join extra-curricular activites we weren't expecting him to receive any of these awards.  They were rightly going to the kids who were in all the plays or helped out at various functions. 

However, as they started to read the description of one award my instantaneous thought was, "Sam is going to win that!"  He did!  It was the award for Outstanding Fiction Writer.  Sam has really shown talent in his writing and had won a similiar award way back in grade school.  He is a kid with interesting thoughts and he is good at expressing them in compelling ways.  Usually he instills a fair bit of humor into this process, making it fun for the reader.

Sam received a certificate as well as a journal.  Unlike me, he was surprised that he was given this award.  He'd never noticed that he'd impressed any of his teachers with his writing.  He was most pleased when he read what was written in the journal as it was written by his favorite teacher.  I thought it was an interesting inscription...

I think Sam was proud to be thought of as having some craziness!

Congratulations, Sam!