Back in the 90’s there was this cool (weird?) fad that became popular – the “Magic Eye” stereo-gram poster. The posters themselves were chaotic, somewhat awkward and ugly (and by somewhat I mean seriously, “Why would you hang that in your room” ugly), but if you stared at the chaos long enough, in just the right way, a cool, hidden, 3D image of something would pop off the page. Trust me, this was not the weirdest thing about the 90’s but it happened, so…whatever. The reason I bring up those posters is that you could stare at the same poster a dozen times and never see that 3D image. Then suddenly one day, your focus would shift and BAM, like magic, there it was; from that point on, every time you looked at it, you would see what had been right in front of you all along.

The beginning of October I took a road trip with my middle child, who is my oldest boy child, who also happens to be old enough to buy his own beer now. (If you want to bond with your adult children, I do not recommend spending 36 straight hours in a Ford Focus. Around hour 31 you start to notice how weirdly your travel companion breathes and WHY ARE YOU BREATHING SO OFTEN. Minor irritations are magnified when you have been trapped together in a car for that long.)

We were cruising down the interstate in the middle of North Carolina. I was behind the wheel and the boy was riding shotgun. There was music playing, small talk happening, it was just a regular moment, almost exactly like the 1,478 moments that had elapsed since we set out the day before. This moment was absolutely nothing special. Until.

I remember glancing to my right, to check a mirror, or observe the scenery, or something inane. I just glanced to right, the same way I had multiple times in the last 1,611 miles, and I noticed my son sitting beside me. Only this time, for the first time, he wasn’t a boy.

I have been looking at my son almost every day for all of his life. I can’t say that we are besties, but we have a good relationship, and even before he moved back in (that’s a different story) he was not opposed to stopping at mom’s house to grab some free food and use my laundry facilities. I know he is a grown up. I mean, I KNOW this. He is a member of a National Guard unit and spends one weekend a month, two weeks every summer, soldiering with heavy machinery and lots of weaponry. He buys his own alcohol and owns his own arsenal. The point is, I have had a few years to accept the fact that my baby is not a baby anymore.

But. But…when I look at him, he is a stereogram picture of an adult. I still see a lifetime of little boy moments: The excitement of Christmas morning; bright eyes staring in wonder at a new baby brother; tear stained face after a girl broke his heart. A lifetime of little boy memories crafted into the picture of him I carry in my heart.

When I saw him, from the corner of my eye, in the middle of that long road trip, I did not see the little boy giggles and awkward teenage angst. I finally saw what had been hiding amongst the chaos of colors and shapes I had been staring at for years. My boy is a man now. I see it, in the strength of his jawline and the weight of responsibility he has chosen to bear upon his shoulders. It lies naturally across his unshaved cheeks, covered in the stubble of two days travel.

Years ago, I dreamed that someday, my son would be a good man. Today, I see the man he has become and I know he has already exceeded my wildest dreams. This boy has taken pieces of childhood and crafted a man of honor, integrity, and humor much greater than the man my limited imagination could have conceived, the day he was first laid in my arms. The courage, determination, and compassion with which he approaches the world is nothing I was brave enough to imagine for him. I do not have the right words to explain the pride I feel when I see the man he has become. Like a 3D image, magically revealed within the chaos of a stereogram poster, I will never be able to “unsee” the man who has emerged from the memories of a little boy. Trust me, when you see it you will wonder how you ever missed it, because the transformation is magic.