Sitting in some old box at my childhood home is a postcard with Snap, Crackle, and Pop on one side and a hastily-scribbled note on the other. The camp must have gotten them as part of some promo and filling it in was the only way to gain entrance into the dining hall on the first night of camp. I remember thinking that the camp had taken a page out of a dictator’s handbook. “Write to your parents and tell them how much fun you are having or you can’t have dinner tonight.” What was this place? The Gulag? I was nine.
Last summer, my husband safely delivered our twelve-year-old son, Ben, to (a different) summer camp with little fanfare. It was, according to Warren, a very calm and successful experience. And, as far as we knew, Ben settled in and was having a fantastic time—we thought.
Because in the first fortnight, we did not hear one single word from him.
Not a letter. Or a postcard. A carrier pigeon or even a puff of smoke from a smoke signal.
Nothing.
Nada.
Zilch.
The camp does highly encourage every kid to send some form of communication. After all, they know that there are anxious parents waiting to hear from their kids. But really, why should this poor kid be forced to put pen to paper just to satisfy my parental curiosity?
Each day, when I returned empty-handed from the mail box, our nine-year-old daughter would make the following assessment: “Ben must be having such a great time and so much fun that he is too busy to write.”
The photographs that were posted regularly online from the camp were proof of this. I scanned the pictures with the same concentration I once used when reading love letters from my husband, looking at each gesture, facial expression, experience, trying to extract the emotions from the two-dimensional image.
And what I saw was someone who bore a strong physical resemblance to my son. Only this one was smiling. All the time. No traces of his typical anxiety appeared on his face. And doing things that I have never thought he would attempt. In-line skating?
Would I have liked a letter from him? Sure. And one did arrive eventually. But if nothing arrives this summer, I really am OK with that too. As long as I can continue to watch from afar.
Printer-friendly version