Friday dawned a beautiful day. The Colorado sunrise was particularly spectacular. When I dropped Frank off at school, I asked him to take a photo of the sky with my phone. Later I posted it with the caption, “This is what the sky looked like on the day Frank and his band mates played their first concert.” When I look back through photos I've posted, it will forever bring a smile to my face.
At rehearsal the day before, they realized there was another adaptor they’d need. I agreed to go and get it. One of the other parents had volunteered to go get sodas, water and chips for the boys to sell at the show. Evidently they hadn’t gone to get the stuff and didn’t plan to. We’d get that stuff too, I answered Frank’s text.
When Doug and I delivered the Costco goods to the barn at noon, no one was there, the door was unlocked, and I didn’t see the equipment the boys had left the night before anywhere. Sick to my stomach. Again. Why was the door left unlocked? Where was the equipment? Disaster loomed. I walked over to the house, rang the doorbell, but no one was home. Tears filled my eyes on the slow walk back to the barn.
When I reentered, Doug told me he’d found the equipment, stacked behind the bar. Thank God. The heat still hadn’t been turned on, as had been promised, and the tractor still sat in the middle of the floor. Worry loomed.
A few minutes later, Si and Dorothy pulled up in their truck and came inside to chat with us. She called her son who was up in Thornton. He promised to be there sometime that afternoon to light the pilot light on the heater, and move the tractor. The key was still unfound, but he had another plan. Worry . . . again.
The afternoon was filled with texts from Frank, with questions from the boys in the band. The air crackled with excitement. They were playing their first show. Wait, my son is in a band. When did that happen? And he did this on his own, no prompting from me. This was his thing, but also, a dream come true for me. Throughout the afternoon I found myself in tears. Really happy tears.
Later, the boys and I met again at the barn. Doug met us there too, with his Nikon. He took professional-quality “band shots” that I can’t wait to see. The boys set up their equipment. No one mentioned the proverbial elephant-tractor in the room, but every so often I’d catch one of them looking at it, willing it gone.
At five o'clock, the concert slated to start at six-thirty, I sent one of the boys up to the house to see if we could get an update on Brian’s arrival. Nope. Worry. A few minutes later my cell phone rang. It was Dorothy. Brian should be at the barn in fifteen minutes. Relief.
I gathered the boys around and gave them the update. Sometime the day before they had proclaimed me their manager. But wait, they said, so-and-so is our manager. They pointed to a girl helping with set up. It’s okay, I assured them. “But you’re band mom,” they said.
I laughed and showed them a photo I’d posted on Instragram. It was a pic Doug took of me right before we left for the barn. The caption read “band mom.” Their smiles mirrored mine.
Brian arrived, got the pilot light on the heater lit, and with the help of three other guys, got the tractor out of the barn. It was six o’clock.
I gathered the boys around again and told them for the umpteenth time how proud I was of them. “You’re ready,” I said, and hugged them one by one. When I stepped back, I saw that I was not the only one whose eyes had filled with tears. Hand on my heart, I turned and walked away, feeling so proud and so close to these young men.
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