Jared Ralph

We were all so pleased when Jared arrived.  Dad brought everyone to the hospital in Riverside to see the new baby through the glass.  What a joy--then and ever since.

Jared expected life to be good, and he expected to be good at life.  And he has been.

I worried when kindergarten started because I hadn't worked with him enough on his letters, etc.  In the last 48 hours I even tried to cram, making him practice writing his name.  Futile, of course.  But Merrilyn Guymon taught KG and she took over so that he was reading by Thanksgiving.

In 2nd Grade Mandi Mathis' mom was the Aide. She said his teacher wrote "rodeo" on the board, spelled wrong.  Jared told her, but the teacher disagreed.  When he persisted she sent him into the library to look it up.  He was right.

Paper route folding w/ Leon?, Jeremy, and Scott Maxwell

In 6th grade he had definite ideas.  He was furious with me for giving him a bad haircut and almost cried on the way to school, a ball cap hiding the evidence.  I think he was even madder when someone told his friends that his middle name was Ralph.

Always passionate about what he loved, he would throw himself into whatever mattered most.  For instance, junior high was full of skiing. 

By high school he'd made a name for himself.  Once I tried to get into the gym to watch his part in an assembly, and as all the other students crowded in I heard a girl say, "There he is!!"  I looked around to check out the situation and here came Jared, walking in and looking cool.

Of course, the skirt-at-homecoming in the assembly was a big deal.  As I've written before, I didn't get it but Dad did.  "He's just trying to show how brave he is."  And then Dad said with genuine envy, "I wish I'd had that kind of courage when I was his age."

Besides knowing what was up, Jared's heart was open to people.  As a general rule, he liked everybody, and they liked him back.  OK, if someone crossed a line he would call them out, but he liked people, without discrimination.  I remember the BIG box of t-shirts in Green Valley that I wanted him to sort through and discard, but it was hard for him because they represented people he cared about.  "Oh! Motel 6!" And then he'd go on about a guy he liked in Jackson from that motel.

He's good, smart, and kind.  Wanting to understand. Caring.  It feels like a privilege to be his friend, let alone to be his mother.  I love you, Jared.

The kind of portrait a mother likes.  A last look at the boy she has raised
 before he leaves her, as he should, to go become a man for someone else.