The Brower House

Like many of you these days, my husband and I are seeing our son off to college very soon. He’s our only child and has been the center of our world. How do we just leave him at college? Isn’t that a strange thought….we protect and nurture our kids, try to keep them well and happy and then we just….leave them? I imagine Ken and I will be able to accomplish that small, yet world-sized task…..we’ll see. One day soon I’ll know and then I’ll be back in touch to let you know how simple a task it proves to be.

In the meantime, I've been reflecting a lot lately and I wanted to share a poem with you Matthew wrote for an assignment in Junior High. As I understood it, the students were to use an acronym with their last names to create descriptions of their home lives (or something like that). What follows is Matthew’s version of The Brower House as he saw it at that time (which was probably about 2004):

The Brower House

Trees rustling in the backyard
Hot stove cooking dinner
Evenings drinking iced tea

Basketball court in the driveway
Room full of posters and jerseys
Once used things in the basement covered in dust
Wake up to the sun in the morning
Entering the garage driving the red minivan
Raking leaves in the fall

Hamburgers on the grill
October flowers blooming near the street
Under the roof when it rains
Smell of candles burning
Everyone in the house on Christmas

------Written by Matthew Brower

I love this poem and I have copies of The Brower House all over the Brower house! Although I would love to see his description of his life as it is now, as he prepares to leave for college, I don’t have that luxury. I wonder, too, like all parents wonder - what his life will be like in the future. I don’t have the luxury of that, either.

All I can do is send him into the world and pray that in the last 18 years his father and I have helped prepare him to face the challenges, lessons and joys that await him. My prayer is that he will be a man of integrity, that the values and morals which are such a part of Matthew will give him the strength to make decisions that he’ll be proud to recall as his. I also pray he has the compassion to value others and never see himself better (or worse) than anyone else. I hope he’ll have the work ethic he has witnessed in his dad and the love for others I hope he has seen in me. I pray he will find the passionate vocation he so desires and especially, the love of his life, the one God has already chosen. I hope he will value friendship and will continue to be a good friend to the many who grace his life now and in his future. Most importantly, I pray he will seek God’s will and direction for his life. I know that’s the true key to happiness.

And I hope he calls, e-mails, Skypes and texts his mother often. That’s not too much to ask, is it?