Homecoming, Spontaneously

I don't know how common it is campus-wide, but I get after-school visits from former students every year.

This year, I've had R, J, N, E, M, and today, K, drop by. Six kids in the first three weeks of school. That's a lot, even for me.

I say kids, but many of them are being graduated from four-year universities this year, have spent semesters overseas, are engaged, etc. And some are last year's Mayfair graduates who barely have the confetti washed out of their hair.

They come in to catch me up on their lives, or to ask for advice. Some of them I haven't had daily contact with since middle school. But we chat, and I get updated. I see how they've changed: sometimes I'm impressed by their growing maturity and first grapplings with the challenges of adulthood in college or the world of work; other times I'm saddened or shocked by the values and attitudes that they have adopted, and pray they will experience a speedy transition to a more mature perspective. I've had both reactions this week.

I know that at least some of them make more than one stop while they're on campus, and my door is open for a couple of hours a day after school, and that makes me a pretty easy choice. But I also know that a few of them come to see me specifically, and I understand the honor they confer on me by taking time away from any of the other things a 20 year-old could be doing to stay and talk to some tired-looking middle-aged guy for a while. Most of the time they will sit across my desk for an hour or more; sometimes two, and three is not unheard of (happened last week).

I'm not talking about the random, one-time visit. I get some of those, too. Mostly because my door is open after school. Those tend to be significantly briefer, and the conversations shallower. But the regulars and semi-regulars: we have friendships that are being maintained, and when you see your friend just once or twice a year, it takes some time to catch up.

Can they sense how much I enjoy their visits? That I'm genuinely interested in their lives, just like I was then they were thirteen, or sixteen? I always make references to ways that I know them as people or show interest in them in our conversations:

"Oh, you were always impatient: it's no wonder waiting for that second interview call drove you nuts."

"I can just see you sitting there, listening to your professor drone on, and looking around the class, wondering why everyone was eating up the garbage he was spewing out."

"What do you think you've learned about yourself, since you broke up with ________ ?"

That may be responsible for much of my return business. One of the things I give in my classroom is myself. I treat them as if they were real people: unique individuals that have value and who matter. Don't get me wrong: I'm so not touchy-feely, or interested in pampering their emotions, and I think the Self-Esteem movement has screwed up more young minds than LSD. I'm more likely to tell a kid that it's not about his feelings, so stop talking back to his parents, and to go out and get a haircut and a job, in that order. But I can get away with that, becaue they know I care about them, always treat them with dignity, and demand that they treat themselves with some. Too many kids come through my classroom every year who have inattentive parents, or who are missing a parent (I know that I have served as a father figure for many students over the last dozen years), or no youth pastor or other trusted adult to confide in. It's tough when you see your dad every other weekend. So I'm willing to stand in that gap, if they'll have me. I take their concerns and worries seriously. I try to understand them, and I think they sense that. I've had a few tell me that I'd make a good father, which is more of a compliment than they know. A few friendships have developed deeply enough that I've been teased with the name "Dad." I burst with secret pride.

Today I was asked which side of the aisle I was going to sit on at her wedding, hers, or her fiancée's? (I taught them both, and am good friends with them both).

I never know who's going to show up, or where it's going to lead. But I'm usually delighted.