His Father's Eyes

It was the summer that my son matriculated from preschool to kindergarten. That's when we found out that his little eye problem was going to cause him to have to wear glasses. Outwardly, I took the news with aplomb. Why shouldn't my son wear glasses? His father has been wearing glasses since he was five, why shouldn't he? That was the public response. It was fine. All part of the plan. No worries.
It was also the summer that the family was going off to Disney World. We left before he was fitted with his new spectacles, and inside I felt worried about all those wonderful sights that he might not be able to see because of my poor genetics. The smile that met each ride on the Monorail seemed unfazed by the blur that must have appeared on the edges of objects more than a few yards away. All the magic in the kingdom wouldn't make the happiest place in the world come into focus for him. Not that he minded. Not that he suffered. He was able to use his other senses, such as his heightened sensitivity to locomotives to find the train that wound its way through the Animal Kingdom. The one which his parents had remained blissfully unaware. And he saw things that his mother and father never would have seen with their grown-up eyes, with or without prescription lenses. We took a lot of photos, but I still had that nagging feeling that somehow he was being cheated. I had let him down.
He's in high school now. He's struggling to keep his mind on his work. The imagination that both of his parents imbued him with was wreaking havoc with his former honor roll grades. His interests outside the classroom were getting the best of him. This past week he got a letter of rejection from the engineering academy at his high school. I remembered the look on his face when he first visited the campus and sat at one of the drafting tables. It was that same monorail smile. And now that grade point average has come back to bite him. I felt the secret shame of the math class I was kicked out of in high school. The academic probation I endured in college for my lackluster attention and attendance. Like all those other parents, I just wanted my child to do better than me. But how could he with the equipment I had given him?
Then I saw the light: memories. His memories of Disney World are vivid and bright. My recollections of struggles at school continue to be embarrassing enough on the retelling to help gauge the challenge in front of my son's pursuit of his own brass ring. Or sheepskin. Or whatever they are currently handing out. There is a waiting list for the engineering academy. There are still plenty of worlds for him to discover. With his father's eyes.