Son of Mine Part II

Beast – May 2010 – Mothers Day – 24”x 30” drawn from a 2”x3” reference

The prelude to this is Son of Mine Part 1. A story of how art gave self confidence to an unsure semi-geeky child.

So what do you when you are going 70mph in the middle of Missouri and your 11 year old says “Mom – sometimes I think about killing myself.”

First instinct is to pull over and hug him – but that wasn’t a possibility in heavy traffic. So I took my right hand, reached behind me and held his hand. (Yes, I was that parent who made their kid ride in the back seat until he was 12 because it was the law.)

That night at our hotel we discussed possibilities and decided to put him in the lottery for one of the charter schools. We had no luck in previous years because we lived in a district they pulled only 20% from. He knew if he went to a charter school there would be no sports because of the commute time. He didn't care - he needed a change.

By the time we got back to Texas two weeks later, there was a surprise in the mail. The school district was taking another school downtown and turning it into a performing arts elementary school focusing on art and music. They were taking 30% from our district. I filled out the application and took it in to the district office.

A month later we got the acceptance letter.

I took his saxophone in to get re-fitted and we went shopping at Michael's every week utilizing 40% off coupons to build his art tools kit.

When people found out my son gave up sports to attend the performing arts school, it was like he had committed a crime.
”I am so sorry to hear that”
”Wow, and did you try to talk him out of it?”

Nope, I encouraged it!

I am glad I did. Yes, it was hard for him to drive past the practice fields every night and not be playing but he was gaining self-esteem. He was at a school where they only taught honors and there were no gangs. His confidence in who he was would get him through junior high.

He Stands Up For Himself

A day I will never forget. I am naked in a changing room at the hospital getting gowned for a CATScan and my cell rings. It’s the Junior High – the vice principal.

Junior high was rough – a mix of everything and everyone. In 8 weeks my son had seen classmates arrested for drugs and car theft. He had seen a kid stab another in the head with a pencil during lunch. In the honors classes he was shielded most of the day from the gangs and while many had tried out for the football teams, after two to three weeks of hard work outs and the first progress reports, there was a slimming of the herd there as well.

The lunch room was a place where havoc displayed daily. My son packed a lunch every day as he had since first grade. He has always hated pre-packaged, boxed, canned foods. He packed a good lunch of fresh foods daily.

”Ma’am, we had an incident in the lunch room. Another child tried to take your sons grapes. Your son gave him a verbal warning to stop or he would get hurt. The other child then tried to get yours in a head lock. Ma’am, I had to put your son in detention but just to cool off. It was beautiful. Your son took that other kid, flipped him over and slid him like a hockey puck across the cafeteria into a column.”