Senior athlete's final event is tough day for entire family

I can picture the scene now that is playing out in many homes across our suburbs.

It's actually been going on for a few weeks.

Your son or daughter has just competed in a high school sports event for a final time.

Graduation is next … or maybe graduation already has been held.

What do you do now as a parent? You have lots of free afternoons and evenings and weekends.

The family calendar on the refrigerator is surprisingly free of high school sports events.

Do you just drive around aimlessly looking for something to watch?

So it finally has come down to this.

Where did the senior year ago, you ask yourself?

Where did the four years go?

How can this possibly be the end of such a wonderful adventure with your child?

How do you handle the emotions?

How do you handle the withdrawal of not seeing your child compete again in high school sports?

Parents in fall and winter sports have been through the same withdrawal process with their senior athletes.

What makes it even tougher in the spring is the pomp and circumstance of graduation. That just adds to the finality of it all, the closure of the high school experience.

So what do you do as a parent to get yourself through the agony of walking away from that field for the last time?

It's time to back away, ask what happened over four years, see where you've gone with your child and what's been won and lost.

Think back to those times when your child first got interested in sports and how life really seemed so uncomplicated back then.

Think about games won, games lost.

Think about serving as a chauffeur for your child.

Think about lending a strong shoulder because of those bumps and bruises and hurt egos that needed mending at home.

Think about those days spent rehashing plays with neighbors and team parents.

Think about searching the local sports pages and smiling if your child's name is mentioned and scowling if it isn't.

Think about how even during the difficult times, the communication through sports increased your understanding of each other and the comprehension of what the struggles are all about.

Sports have become another language between child and parent.

That every person has a final high school game is really never considered by boys and girls who have such passions and appetites for playing their sport -- or by their parents who get so much enjoyment by watching.

It really doesn't hit them until shortly after the final moment of the final game of the final season, senior year.

Maybe it sounds corny, but every parent of a young athlete, particularly these seniors, should understand that life really is a trip, not a destination.

Games inexorably lead a child down certain paths. We as parents follow for various reasons, most of them very good.

When your child has had that final event in high school, you can be thankful for your part in a young person's ride to adulthood.

Whether your family is together at a tennis meet or football game or soccer game or camping trip or dog show, the common denominator is this: families together, making special memories.

As a parent, you should close your eyes now and build the image of your graduating senior, standing at the edge of town with the high school sitting in the background, empty of the sounds of bouncing balls, bustling students and cheering fans.

There's a highway leading from that school that stretches to a flat line between the land and sky.

Your child is now ready to start down that highway and walk out into the world.

Parents, I hope you don't stop going to high school games because your child is walking on that highway and heading out of town.

Why can't you start cheering for somebody else's son or daughter.

I have the perfect idea.

Adopt a neighbor.