Over three years ago, when I was newly pregnant with Nicholas, I offered a detailed prayer. I needed a job — something that would fit in with our family’s life and would cover the cost of pregnancy and delivery. I offered the prayer the day I found out I was pregnant.
The next day, I found myself in the offices of D.C. United, the Major League Soccer franchise in our hometown. Major League Soccer had just signed a shy, 16-year-old boy named Bobby Convey to be the youngest player ever to play professional soccer in this country. The problem? He hadn’t yet finished high school and the league promised his mother he’d get a diploma. I went there that day as a consultant on home education in Virginia; I left with an answer to my prayer. I was to be his teacher.
Like so many prayers that I have prayed with an openness to life, God blessed me beyond my grandest imaginings. Bobby essentially joined our family that spring. He taught me about teenagers and high school at home. He taught me about the intensity of a gifted athlete. He reminded me of the pain of teenaged romances. He let me see the world of adolescent boys from a parent’s perspective before my children were adolescents. Most of all, he let me love him.
He was a frequent diner at our dinner table, a frequent napper on our couch. As he grew closer to our family, he was the big brother our eldest child never had. Cheerfully, he encouraged Michael to shadow him on the practice field, in the locker room, at home. He adored the younger children and was grateful for the respite they provided from his adult world. It was Bobby who stayed with our children when our latest baby was delivered and Bobby who drove the big van and brought her siblings to meet her in the hospital. Bobby bought his first house with our advice and assistance. Then, he sold it and bought a new one a block from our new home. My littlest children would cheerfully chirp, “Bobby lives around the corner. I can ride my bike.”
He popped in at all hours, teaching me that teenagers like to talk most after ten in the evening. And we did talk. We discussed finances and goals and success on many levels. We discussed Mary Beth Bonacci’s books and Bobby’s place in God’s grand plan. My husband and I count among our happiest memories the evening last Christmas when Bobby sat on our hearth and poured out his heart and let us know how God had touched his soul.
So, it was with tears that I met the news last week that Bobby has signed a new contract with the English Premier League and will be leaving to live in London. I was in the mountains with my children when my husband called to break the news. He said it was good news and bad news, depending on perspective. It is a wonderful opportunity for Bobby — a chance to grow and shine professionally and personally. But we will miss him sorely.
My words, at hearing the news, sprung from my heart without thinking, “He can’t go! There’s still so much he doesn’t know!” That wasn’t his tutor speaking. Bobby earned his diploma and he’s as learned as most high school graduates. There will always be more books to read but that wasn’t the cry of my heart.
No, he can’t go because the world is so big and there are still so many things to tell him about people and relationships and life. I don’t want him to go so far away. I’ll miss him terribly. He adds a dimension to our lives that no one else ever will.
I find myself setting one fewer place at my table at a time when several of my friends whose children have just left for college are doing the same. And I reflect on how short the time is that I have with the children who still gather for dinner at my home. I’m beginning to understand that we send them all out into the world well before they know all that we want to teach them. That’s when we redouble our efforts at prayer. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my prayers for Bobby will take on a new meaning in my life. There’s little else I can do.
Elizabeth Foss is a freelance writer from Northern Virginia. Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home by Elizabeth Foss can be purchased at www.4reallearning.com.
(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
