New Beginnings

He was a child with dreams. Twice Adam dressed as an astronaut for Halloween. While his first words were “mama” and “dada,” the words that stick in my mind are “on” and “off.” Before he was four months of age, I wrote in my journal, “I think my son will be an electrical engineer.” Probably because his childhood passion was everything that could be turned on.

     When I came home from teaching high school, the young Adam clomped around the house in my old Frye boots that came up to the top of his four-year-old legs. Then he would race around, and I would chase him. “My boots!” he would shriek with delight.

     So much delighted him. Ice cream cones. Legos. Math problems. Cheeseburgers at Cocos.  Oh, and vacuums. Every Christmas he wanted a vacuum. He liked to sweep with them, but he loved to pull them apart and figure them out.

     Back then he confided his secrets to me. He told me about Annie O, who bounced around his kindergarten classroom with her long blond curls jostling up and down as she squealed his name, “Adam M!” In grade school he won so many accolades for his math abilities, we nicknamed him “Math.” But by fourth grade he banished this geeky name. Still his grandpop beamed with pride and whispered, “Adam has the engineering genes.”

       I am not clear if his puberty was hard on him, but I know it was hard on his parents. Steve and I felt disowned. Still, I took comfort in the fact that he kept growing into new interests. Computers. Cars. But mainly music and playing the saxophone. He would watch his dad navigate the challenges of a small engineering business, and he would shrug. “Dad, you work too hard. I want to have more fun.”

   The band room became his inner sanctum in high school. Band nerds were his friends.  If we wanted to see him, we had to be in the Mesa High Stadium on a Friday night to watch the band play. We never missed a game.

    In the spring of his sophomore year, Adam invited us to a high school Jazz in the Park concert. When his name appeared highlighted throughout the concert program, and he improvised in front of a large crowd with ease, we were stunned. His peers had dubbed him “Adam G” after the saxophonist, Kenny G. From that moment on it felt like he was being pulled into the vortex of who he was supposed to be. A musician. His music teachers told us he had a rare musical gift and that it should not be wasted. He revamped his high school schedule. When he told us he was dropping advanced calculus, we tried to convince him he would need it for college. “I won’t need it to be a musician,” he explained.

   At the start of his senior year, he began looking for colleges with music majors. We toured Southern California and talked with the staff who directed jazz studies. At the same time his private jazz instructor, a well-known jazz composer, suggested we allow Adam to play a few professional gigs with him on Saturday nights. Steve and I were a little nervous about a late-night bar scene, but the venues proved to be classy jazz clubs with audiences who were hooked on the mellow music their ensemble played—more Miles Davis than Kenny G.  And Adam thrived on performing.

       When the college acceptances came, Matt decided the University of Southern California was not the right fit. Then we toured the University of Arizona, found a new music program, and then a dorm. He enrolled that spring.

      That August, we helped him pack his boxes and load them in the van. Teary-eyed, I  hugged him good-bye, and Steve drove him to the Tucson campus where he helped him move into his room.

      It was a new beginning, but not the one we expected.  Two days later Steve was engaged in a project meeting. That same afternoon after Steve returned to work in Chandler, he was interrupted by a phone call.

   “Please take a message.”

     “It’s your son,” the receptionist replied. “He said it’s urgent.”

     Steve left the meeting perplexed and answered the phone. “Adam, what’s up?”

    “Dad, what do I need to do to change my major from music to electrical engineering?”

     For a moment Steve sat there stunned. “Adam, what did you say?”

     “Dad, I want to be an electrical engineer.”

     A long silence. “Why?”

     “I want to get a Ph.D. in electrical engineering,” Adam paused. “That is really what I want to do. How can I make that happen?”

     Last week our extended family sat around the kitchen table after Christmas brunch, and once again, this story about Adam came up. By now the story is twenty years old, but the awe of it—a new and unexpected beginning being born in Adam stays with us.  When we asked him why he made this change, he shrugs and smiles mysteriously.

     For a couple of decades ago, after arriving at the University of Arizona, Adam trekked over to the ASU bookstore and bought a pile of Schaum’s outlines on college math as his dad suggested. Then he headed to the counseling department and changed his major. He never looked back.

     To this day Steve and I remain surprised by this sudden change. This new beginning. But Adam was a boy of passions. He loved vacuums. He loved the sax. And somehow college evoked a shift in him that would redirect who he would become.

     Now Adam is a man steeped in a passion for his work. After earning his Ph.D. in electrical engineering, he spends his days in his lab doing research and trying to create the newest level of computer chips. I believe he loses himself in the work.

     I am thankful that we let Adam find his own way—but I am even more thankful that he found it. That a new beginning has allowed him to become who he is. To flourish.

I hope this New Year will hold wonderful new beginnings for you and your loved ones.