A fellow Class of 2025 parent made a Facebook post today – this will be the last Spring Equinox for our children as cadets.
A stop on the Parade of Lasts I hadn’t even thought of. But as the week winds down, the AFA Class of 2025 heads to Spring Break for the last time and, upon their return, head into the home stretch.
The Spring Break stop is a big one. Yes, our cadets will get a big chunk of leave upon commissioning, but Spring Break is different. These kids have had a Spring Break in one form or another for the better part of 15 years. They will have vacations, they’ll have time off, but they won’t be turned loose with all their friends for a week off.
I have been luckier than most as my cadet has spent the last several Spring Breaks with me. Not so this year. But who am I to complain? I recall talking with a parent who had a son in the same class as my son at the Naval Academy and she told me her son hadn’t spent really any time at all at home since he left for Induction Day. His breaks were spent on trips with friends and girlfriends. Aside from a couple days here and there, he hadn’t returned home. So, I learned to be thankful for whatever time I got.
And as we turn this important corner, it all starts to become very real. There are Zoom calls about graduation, discussions about what can be brought into the stadium, who is taking pictures at the commissioning ceremony, where everyone is staying during Commissioning Week, oh, and how long will you be in town?
As a USNA Plebe parent back in 2016, I would hear the experienced parents talk about time at the Academy being split into thirds – the first summer, the first academic year, and the final three years. Ridiculous, I thought. Then – BAM! – 2020 arrived and my son had commissioned.
By the third year of both my kids’ time at academies, I felt like I was in a groove. Things happened with a certain cadence, visits to the Academy, holidays, visits home, summer breaks. But Firstie year arrives with the Parade of Lasts and that normalcy is disrupted. No more Parents Weekends. No more Thanksgiving Breaks. Class rings arrive, jobs are dropped, bases are announced and suddenly, minor annoyances like room inspections and exams are replaced with apartment hunting, questions about car insurance, and “should I change my license to my new state?”
New state. Of course, they’ve been at the Academy for four years (or for us Preppie parents, five), but we could delude ourselves for a bit, saying “they’re just away at school.” But soon, we won’t be able to pretend anymore. They do what they’ve been trained to do – spread their wings and fly. Now, whether that’s to be a pilot or work in a missile silo or in the Space Force or in acquisitions doesn’t matter.
This chapter will close, and the new adventure will begin. Most parents will play a much smaller role in this chapter. And that’s OK. For all along, throughout these four years, we’ve been trained, too. As long as we’ve paid attention and taken the lessons to heart, we are ready for this new role. Like our soon-to-be officers, we will not be 100% out of the gate. We’ll falter.
Maybe we’ll message them a bit too often. Or perhaps ask too many questions about their new apartment. It could even be that we find ourselves misty-eyed, missing not just our cadet greeting us at the Academy, but that 6-year-old running in through the back door to tell us about a cool bug they found in the yard. But we’ll get better at our new job.
Spring Break will come and go, April will pass before we know it and, suddenly but not-so-suddenly, May will be here. The final Mother’s Day while they are at the Academy. Their last round of final exams. We’ll blink our eyes and they’ll be strolling across the stage at the stadium (weather willing), grasping that diploma and making a firm handshake. In a blur, we’ll be pinning on their new shoulderboards. Then, just like that, we’ll depart Colorado Springs, perhaps for the last time. And that trip home will be unlike any other.
But we aren’t there. Not yet. Take a deep breath. Embrace the moment. Embrace how special it is to be the parent of someone who chose this path and allowed you to come along for the ride. It is, indeed, the Parade of Lasts, but it is also a parade few get to enjoy.
My Kid The Cadet 