The best fall Saturdays ever were spent across a time when a little version of William and I made almost-weekly home-game pilgrimages from Atlanta to the promised land of The University of Tennessee. Today he can effortlessly point out it all began in 2002 when he was six years old and we went to the Rutgers game, sat in the upper deck, Casey Clausen was quarterback and Vols won 35-14 (but could've played better). So it was for years we had game day traditions that always began with a morning walk up Volunteer Boulevard amidst a rising tide of orange humanity and exhilaration particular to college football. All along the way our conversations took on an assumptive thread that looked forward to the bright Someday when William would grow up and be released onto that very campus as a UT student. This became a perpetual thought that traveled across years and years of calendar pages until somehow we landed squarely in that Someday.
While everything else in William's world was rearranged through those years, his idea of the perfect collegiate future never moved one tiny bit. But the thing that became apparent over time was this dream's realization looking pretty doubtful. While everybody else applying to UT in the fall received rapid acceptance, William looked online every day for four months to find his application (still) under review. During this time we considered what a doable and happy Plan B looked like since we had not bothered to include these pesky little details in 12 years of Someday dreaming.
But the amazing thing I saw with my very own eyes is a crazy phenomenon where, in the midst of uncertainty about significant hopes working out at all, the reality that actually unfolds can trump all and go beyond the dream. When we believed the whole UT thing was hopeless, surprising details exceeding what we could have ever expected fell from above and into perfect place.
In March when an admission decision at long last was available to view, it was for UT's freshman Bridge program, then unfamiliar but one we quickly found perfect for William's learning lifestyle. In a separate program from his cadre of friends, William worried about his unknown assigned roommate but, there again, somehow he got the best one going (and with the loveliest mom). One by one, William's needs, wants and desires at UT and college were checked off in all sorts of surpassing ways--but different from how we had pictured them. It turns out the 12 year dream was a mere starting point for the good things that have come--there was a better dream out there we didn't even know.
But William and The University of Tennessee are just a piece of this tale.
My little story is also about Annabelle.
It's about me.
It's about our very very crowded Christmas tree that evolves more each year with a kaleidoscope of really beautiful ornaments telling the story of the places we have been, the people we know and love, the road we have traveled with lows and highs, and about moments of time that have been beyond words. It's about good and perfect gifts that come from above when one has big doubts they will ever arrive at all. And finally it is affirmation of the More that God promises in our Somedays, the exceedingly and abundantly that appear, triumphing over the dark and difficult.
The big version of William now lives on Volunteer Boulevard, and somewhere on a weekday this past fall we again got to walk down that road together. The arrangement was like the one of so many football Saturday mornings, and in my head I could drift back to feel the building excitement of game day and hear familiar Big Orange Saturday sounds. The tall guy beside me looked just like the little boy whose hand I used to hold on that same sidewalk. And he told me two things as we walked along: He does think of the very best fall Saturdays ever when he travels that road as a college student. And Someday is even better than he ever thought it could be.
Christmas, 2003
Someday.
~~~~~
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
~~ James 1:17
