A Lesson in Letting Go

My parents' homeowners' association was having its annual Republic Day celebrations late last month and my parents wanted my son to perform something on stage. He had played his keyboard on the last two occasions and neither my son nor myself was keen on another keyboard recital.

It had to be something new, but what? By the last week before the big day we still hadn't decided. I was dragging my feet, as usual.

A couple of days before the function, I was at my parents' house and my dad said, "He's doing his speeches well, just make sure he practices some more."

"What speeches?" I stared at my dad blankly.

"He said he was doing a speech on Time and another on Temples. He has all the points, he just needs to practice some more."

I was speechless. I said I hadn't prepared him. I did not even know that he had thought about what he was going to do. Now it was my parents' turn to stare at me.

So when we came home, and I asked him to show me how he did the speeches in front of my parents. He reeled off everything he had thought about those two topics - how the clock tells us time, and how time tells us what we need to be doing at particular points during the day, how temples are decorated with elephants, and how people make temples very dirty by dropping things on the floor (that's his pet peeve about temples), etc.

The whole thing was just so cool.

I noticed, however, that everytime he recited his speech, the content changed. He would add stuff, he would omit stuff, he would just go off on a tangent (the prasada is too sweet and eating too many sweet things is not good for you, etc.). This was making me uncomfortable. If he did not learn them by rote, he would forget. What if he tried to make up something and he blanked out?

So I decided to teach him that skit about the hole in the bucket, that staple from school annual day functions. He got the story the first time I recited it and after a few practice sessions, he did it pretty well and was good-natured about learning something new on short notice.

But I could see that he was excited about his speeches. Everytime we talked about the function, it was his speeches he brought up. It was his baby.

I was torn between letting him do what he was excited about and making him perform something I was sure he would get right. So I decided to let go and gave him the choice. He went with the speeches, although, I have to tell you, not before agonizing a little bit about making me unhappy if he chose the speeches over my skit.

On the big day, he went up the the stage when his name was announced, grabbed the mike and started off. And what my parents and I heard that day was completely different than what we had heard before.

But he had fun. And I couldn't be happier. He came up with a plan and he executed it, pretty much all on his own. He wasn't afraid of going up there and goofing up.

And, he's promised me, the next time there's a function, he would do the "hole in the bucket" routine.

P.S. He just doesn't like the prasada, and so that it is sweet is just his excuse. He loves chocolate and ice cream, on the other hand.