‘Of’-ness, continued

Claire:

This kid that we’ve literally, point A to point B to point C to point D, watched grow into this ... thing bigger than himself and yet all the while remain himself -- will always be Stephen of Davidson. That’s our choice -- the facebook statuses, the text messages, the emails and phone calls back and forth in the summertime because we’re watching the same thing on the screen and we’re not together but we want to be because this is important, dammit (think Easter 2008), this is OUR BOY -- but it’s also his choice. And in the midst of his dream coming true, we are still his. He is still ours. Through signs and smiles and Dell curved into his chair just like he curves in his mid-court seat and Sonya biting her lip and their son’s pure quiet excitement that makes me think of the 18-year-old he was, who beamed and stuck out his tongue because the crowd was roaring and that was just so much fun (oh man, we had no idea) ... through the shared memories and everpresent acknowledgment, spoken and unspoken, of ten days when we were suddenly on top of the world (and only he, and we, can really know how that felt, only) ... Through all of these, and through that welling up feeling, that heart-in-throat feeling when I heard his name for the what number? time (not in a classroom, not in a starting lineup, not on Kilgo, not on The Davidson Show) and saw him duck his head and stand up and smile -- he kept being ours. He re-became ours. Different but the same. Hell, we’re all ________ of Davidson. Your name there. My name there. His name there.

That’s what it is.