By Judith Ford
Image by Jude Ford, July 2009, in front of the Mathematics Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, photo © 2010 Jude Ford. All rights reserved.
This is my son, at the door of the math building at the University of Michigan. A month after this picture he’d go through that door to begin his life as a math PhD candidate and as a college teacher. He’d discover the frustration of trying to teach calculus to a bunch of freshmen who wouldn’t give a damn. Who wouldn’t share one drop of the passion he feels for his subject. Years before this photo, he’d told me, with tears in his eyes, that he wished more people could see how elegant and beautiful math was.
Despite the beauty of math, it was never enough.
My son started grad school a month short of his 21st birthday. He was overly ready and not ready at all. He’d had a summer of brutal awakenings, realization upon realization of all he missed out on by being a child math prodigy. Not that he could have avoided being who he was. He was blessed, as much as cursed, with an unusual mind, shunned by children who thought he was showing off, trying to make them feel stupid, when all he was doing was using the language and thoughts natural to him. He had a 30-year-old’s vocabulary by the time he was in first grade. I’m not kidding.
He and I had a conversation just a week ago, about his intellectual differentness. He pointed out to me that he’d met a lot of really smart people in the honors math program at the U of Chicago, from which he’d graduated last June. “There are a lot of people out there who are way smarter than I am,” he said. “I don’t think I was all that unusual when I was a kid.”
I disagreed. “Yes, dear, you really were different. It was obvious by the time you were 2. You learned things in big huge gulps. At a rate that wasn’t usual, that was, frankly, a little scary. And you didn’t know how to play with other kids.”
“I still don’t.”
“That’s what was scary to me when you got tested and those scores came back so freakishly high. I knew you were going to be lonely.”
“I don’t remember ever not being lonely.”
“Kids your age were intimidated by you. By third grade, they’d started avoiding you.”
“I thought they all knew this secret thing that I’d somehow missed out on. I thought math could make up for that. I thought it would solve everything. I was pathetic. I never learned how to be a human being.”
“How brave of you to see that,” I think I said. “So now what do you need to do?”
“I don’t have a clue,” he answered.
There’s ivy growing over the top of this door, up at the right hand corner. Brings to mind the academic cliché of ivied walls and the idea that this door, being partly occluded, is yet another incomplete solution, leading to an unknown and no doubt imperfect path. Math, a career in math, still won’t solve my son’s life or end his loneliness.
See the way he holds his arms and shoulders. His uncertainty and discomfort are obvious. And that he’s trying to be patient with me as I take his picture. He squints at me. He frowns. He knows I’m doing a mom thing that, for some reasons not clear to him, I need to do.
Does he know how my heart hurts for him? How much I wish I could soothe away the pain in his face with something as simple as a hug and a bedtime story. How these things, too, are mom things that I can’t help feeling. He doesn’t need to know. I don’t tell him and I try not to let him see.
He tolerates my hug when I say good-bye. He doesn’t hug back. He doesn’t hold on. His gaze, over my shoulder, already fixed on that door.
It’s trite to say that when he walked through that door he walked into the rest of his life. But I want to say it. So I am. He did. He walked into his adult life without a clue. Which is the only way possible to walk into one’s life. And interestingly, the only way that is, in fact, a kind of solution.
Judith Ford is a psychotherapist and writer who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was red Ravine’s very first guest writer, with her 25 Reasons I Write post. She joins ybonesy and QuoinMonkey in writing about Topic post WRITING TOPIC — DOOR. Judith’s other pieces on red Ravine include Mystery E.R. and a writing group practice I Write Because.
Wow, Jude, what a moving piece. In it I see love, courage, sadness, acceptance. I personally hope that he’ll find reward in connecting through teaching with those rare people like himself, to help them nurture their passions and find a sense of community.
I work at a place where brilliant people, technologists mostly, eventually find community, with others like them as well as those who value their talents. It is a journey.
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Hey Jude….beautiful…both Nic and you!! He “will survive”…(Gloria Gaynor!)
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Wonderfully written, Jude!
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Thanks for comments, ybonesy, Judy, Andrea.
ybonesy, the kind of place you work sounds like a wonderful community for brainy people. I think Nic has located a few people, both in undergrad and grad school, that he feels a kinship with, but he’s still so young. He hardly knows what he wants or who he wants to be, himself. There are parts of him that haven’t seen the light of day yet. He’ll get there. I trust him. I trust his process, painful though it is for me to watch. It is most certainly a journey and a half!
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Jude, this is one of those Writing Practices that, when I read it, felt like it had come out almost fully formed. The last paragraph struck me — the way we walk into life at that age, kind of clueless. Yet it’s the best solution.
It’s a brave piece to post. I appreciate the honesty. We are dealt certain cards at birth and we don’t really get a choice in some matters. The conversation you had with your son, too, where he thought math would solve everything. It reminds me of how writers sometimes think that writing can be everything to them. And the rude awakening when it turns out, it isn’t. And it never can be.
I feel for the struggle your son went through growing up. But I like what ybonesy says about him finding his way, finding like-minded brilliant people to be in community with. He’s on the edge of so many new discoveries. And he has you as a mother, supportive and able to listen and be there for him. I can’t wait to see the amazing things he does with his life.
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Jude,
Your story made me think about a young man I knew at 16. We were both working at our first job for spending money. He was a really big kid, very awkward, shy, not attractive…and quite brilliant. He was already studying “Computer Science”…and in 1975, none of us other teens even knew what that was. His scores tested in the top 10 in the nation. I learned all those years ago (and through this day) laughter breaks all barriers, even among the most mismatch people. He came, not fitting in, but trying so hard to. He left with friends his own age and the confidence to go on to his dreams. I hope your son finds comfort with people of like minds…but I really hope he meets people who can make him laugh.
Heather
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Heather – I couldn’t agree with you more about both the comfort of like-minded people and people to laugh with. Fortunately, Nic has a great sense of humor and a quick wit. Loved what you said about the computer guy you met back in 1975, that he found the confidence to go on to his dreams. I think my son will, too. He’s getting there.
Quoinmonkey – thanks – for the faith you have in me as a parent and also in Nic’s strength. There have certainly been many times – and there will be more – when I’ve doubted my parenting decisions – and Nic’s strength. Nic has been very forgiving of my shortcomings and I do my best not to step in to help him out all the time. To believe in him. Mostly it all works.
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Jude, what a great story about Nic. He is coming into his own. What a adventure to see who he was and who he will become.
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wow, Jude … a beautifully written piece. The dialogue is perfectly relaxed and adds to the story in a way that an explanation never could.
My guts tell me that your son will be just fine. My guts are often right. Sometimes really smart young men have to learn social and relationship skills the same way others learn to play the piano. It does not come naturally at all to them, but it can be learned. I have a son like this, too, and at 24 he is doing well and recently got engaged. His fiancee is quite different than he is from an intellectual/verbal standpoint, but they seem to be a perfect compliment to each other.
I wish you and your son well. As he passes through a door, so do you. Where is yours leading?
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Jude,
During my 21 years of teaching, I had three (maybe four) students who were like Nick. IQ scores through the ceiling, and then some. Of those four children, two sets of parents were handling it well, two were not. Some were simultaneously getting a personal rush out of spawning a genius, which would quickly turn to full-on attacks against teacher (me!) for not doing enough. But I’ll never forget the other two. They regularly said things like, “We just want him to be happy, to enjoy life, to have friends.”
I’m glad Nick has parents like the later, ones who favor a balanced life full of love to everything else.
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Thanks, Teri. You’ve heard a lot about Nic – and being a teacher, you really understand what a mixed bag it is to be a precociously bright kid. And how challenging it is to keep a kid like that engaged in a regular classroom. I can’t understand why parents would ever blame a teacher who was trying their best to help their kid. No teacher can – or should – shape the whole curriculum to meet the needs of any one student. And these super bright kids, generally, have more internal resources than the kids who are developmentally delayed or autistic or otherwise limited.
We were fortunate with Nic’s schooling – he had mostly marvelous teachers in our local public school system from first grade on – people who were honest with us that they’d never met a kid like him before and didn’t know what to do for him. But they were willing to figure it out with us. We worked together well, the principals, the guidance people, the teachers and Chris and I. And with the few teachers who were unkind, unwilling to contribute, the principals backed us and one of those teachers was even fired. But mostly, it was vastly to our benefit to join with and work with all Nic’s teachers. I can’t imagine doing this any other way. Still imperfect but really, no one knew how to manage Nic’s needs, no one anywhere. We consulted experts in other states. We considered various specialty schools. And, yeah, it was always clear that we wanted Nic to have a life of love and balance. I think at this point in his life, that’s what he wants, too.
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[…] Judith Ford is a psychotherapist and writer who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was red Ravine’s very first guest writer, with her 25 Reasons I Write post. Judith’s other pieces on red Ravine include Mystery E.R., I Write Because, and PRACTICE – Door – 20min. […]
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[…] Judith’s other pieces on red Ravine include lang•widge, Mystery E.R., I Write Because, and PRACTICE – Door – 20min. Spring Cleaning is based on a 15 minute Writing Practice on WRITING TOPIC — SPRING […]
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