HIGHLIGHTS

Father and Son Camp 2006

Dr. Jayson Martin (XS'87), father of Aaron Joshua of Grade 3-A

Posted Thursday, 23-Feb-2006 2:24 PM

      The impending Father-Son Camp lent so much excitement for the boys, but so much trepidation for the average Xavier father. While on the outside the fathers were seemingly concerned over the missed meeting, the canceled appointment, the rescheduled operation or the postponed delivery, deep down inside the real concerns were perhaps more mundane, but all the more earth-shattering:

      Can I take care of my son on my own without his mommy’s help?

      How in the world could mommy make him take a bath?

      Eat vegetables? Make his bed?

      Does this tent really go up this way?

      (And how in the world can I put it back in    

      that little bag?)

      What will I say to him when he finds out

      dad can’t balance on that

      rope bridge?

      I hope the bathrooms clean for my son’s

      sake… and mine.

      There’s got to be some decent coffee around here…

      Perhaps that was more daunting for us fathers. Xavier would never throw us to the wilderness to fend for ourselves, we were sure of that (cross fingers here). It was the time that we were going to spend together, deprived of our respective security blankets, my cell phone or Blackberry, his Game Boy or PS2. Now we had to work, play and live together away from the comforts of the familiar. And while admittedly, “roughing it” is too harsh a term (after all, the Xavier Canteen came along for the ride), for a few days there was no CEO, magnate or doctor among us, only dads and their sons.

      And there was the epiphany. Maybe we have been too busy making sure the boys get the best out of this life, and as a result we may get to miss the best part of their lives – when they can act like kids, because they are still kids. And what better way to share in his joy than to take part in it, by acting like kids too? The weekend wore on, and the rewards became happily obvious.

The boost in confidence he gets when you reassure him he can make it through the course.

The laughter in his eyes when he sees you get soaking wet too.

The innate understanding that it’s not if you made it through, but that you tried.

The realization that dawns upon him that hey, my dad was once a kid too like me.

The message that dad isn’t just my dad, that he can be my friend too.

And in the end it was indeed worth missing that meeting, appointment, operation or delivery.

Go back to the top ^