Can I be a Cosmo?

I barely looked when my mobile phone rang. The meeting had already run for almost six hours and nobody knew when it might end. Regular business hours were over, but we were on a deadline that demanded total focus, and there was no time for interruptions. In my weakness, I shot a sideways glance at the vibrating, ringing box next to me.

Momentarily, I sat frozen while I tried to decide who to ignore and who to focus on.

Commitment to my responsibilities is a matter of personal pride. I have proven my willingness to pour out whatever time, energy, or resources are required to achieve success, both at my job and with my family.

Sometimes those worlds collide.

Rather than choose one over the other, I took the path of compromise. At least for the moment, neither received my full attention, but both unwillingly shared with the other. I tuned out the meeting around me and sent a brief text asking if I could call later. Erin’s reply was immediate.

“Was just calling to tell you Josh got the job!”

I replied, “Wow. That is amazing. Congrats.”

Even as I hit the send button, I knew how disappointing my abbreviated response was to an excited daughter. Although my head was reeling with thoughts, I shut them down and returned my attention to the meeting that had not stopped.

The hardest part of life isn’t being successful, it is balancing your loyalties. Success shows our capability, but priorities reflect our character.

Eventually, the meeting ended and I called Erin on my drive home and got all the juicy details. After a couple of disappointing rejections, my son-in-law, Josh, had received his first promotion at work. Nobody should be surprised. He is a smart, hard-working guy who only needs someone to take a chance on him so that he can prove his capability to the world.

His new job would start in four days. More money, longer hours, and more responsibility. He will be a better provider for his young family and his pride is on full display as it should be. He may not be aware yet, but his training program will unwittingly introduce him to the same choices that have faced me the past three decades, choosing where to direct his focus to balance competing priorities in a world that never has enough time.

Josh will do great.

At the same time, Erin’s responsibilities at work are expanding. This past week, she was issued a laptop to enable her to work on customer communications from home. Her hours will also be growing with her new responsibilities and like her husband, she is taking a major step toward providing a better life for them.

I can see reflections of Kim as Erin excitedly chatters about where they will move when their lease expires. The extra money will allow them to expand their boundaries. Their larger paychecks may arrive in dollars, but in her mind the conversion to dreams is immediate. She shares the same ambition as many young women who long to establish a home that is full of life and love.

Their moment is a celebration of a strong foundation. She and her husband have made wise choices that will give way to bigger decisions in the future. Whether she is aware of it or not, the competing priorities of life are crawling toward her too.

Erin will do great.

Meanwhile, James is slugging it out at school. The past year has not gone the way he wanted in many ways. He has faced personal challenges and loss. The pandemic has upended his college experience, requiring him to reinvent his life both academically and socially.

This past weekend, we drove to Waco to meet him for lunch. He talked about his plans to use summers and on-line classes to graduate a year ahead of schedule. He is balancing work, classes, and dealing with a constantly evolving world. The uncertainty that faces him is unique to any previous generation, but he is carving his path forward admirably.

While he told us about the various events in his life, Kim played with his new Chiweenie puppy, Cash (named after The Man in Black). Cash playfully bit her fingers and tugged at the toys she offered him. He never totally took his eyes off James though. If James wandered too many feet away, Cash would drop his toy and fall in line behind James, bouncing and romping through the grass that was as tall as him, staying with the one person he has learned to depend on.

In the midst of all the challenges, James has chosen to use what he has been given to care for and love something besides himself. Buying a puppy during college may or may not be the most responsible idea financially and academically, but it fulfills a growing need in his heart to provide for others. I suspect he is doesn’t yet understand that he will soon enough be the man sitting in a meeting deciding whether or not to answer the phone. I trust his heart though.

James will do great.

When I was James’s age, I stopped referring to my mother as “Mom” and began to call her “Cosmo”. It’s a silly name and to everyone’s disbelief, it had absolutely no relevance to anything. I had chosen it at random from a thought that flitted across my mind one moment. It was never intended in disrespect, rather as a colorful nickname for someone I cared about.

We worked together at the city’s water company for a couple of summers. I delivered the mail throughout the company each day, and as I neared her desk, I would call to her loudly down the hall.

“Hey, Cosmo! You wanna grab lunch today?”

She spent months ineffectively explaining the nickname to her confused coworkers.

For years, she could count on finding a present under the Christmas tree that said “To: Cosmo, From: Jimmy”

In the days when caller ID was a mark of affluence beyond our reach, she answered the phone every Sunday afternoon in her very genteel, soft voice. In contrast to her polite greeting, I would respond loudly.

“Cosmooooooo.”

By the time the kids were born, she had been Cosmo for so many years, that they never knew anything different. To them she was Nana, to others she was Jan, to a few she was Mom. But to me alone, she was Cosmo.

Nobody ever understood why I called her that. Nobody except for her anyway.

The day she became Cosmo was the day that I began to release her from her role as my mother. She no longer had the maternal obligations to care for me as her child. Beginning that day, she was free to re-establish our relationship in any way that she desired. We grew beyond parent/child into friends in the years that followed.

I could ask Cosmo for advice that I never could have sought from Mom. I wanted Mom to think that I was independent, strong and in control so I was careful what I revealed to her. I worried that she would dampen my enthusiasm to pursue dreams that were beyond my reach. I never wanted Mom to worry that I would get hurt.

I could be transparent with Cosmo though. She understood that I wanted to see if I could fly, even if it was just for a moment and the inevitable crash was coming. Cosmo could warn me without being as suffocating as a Mom.

Cosmo shared dreams and ambitions with me that would have seemed silly for a Mom. Cosmo could tell me about the challenges she faced dealing with family and friends that Mom would have felt uncomfortable sharing with her kid.

But in times that I felt defeated and needed someone to hold me, I always knew Mom would still be there.

When she passed away, I lost two people. During her eulogy, I may have called her Mom but did so with a wink in her direction that reminded us both that she would always be my Cosmo.

My age of Cosmo has arrived. Although Josh, Erin, and James will probably never call me that, I hope they can start to see me in a new way and that we can release each other from roles that made yesterday a success.

I hope that Josh can free me from father-in-law stereotypes. I hope that Erin can release me from an outdated role as the leader of a family that has now evolved. I hope that James will never feel confined by the expectations of being a younger version of me. Each of those throwbacks fit like a pair of outgrown shoes.

I hope we can build a different life together that is based on who we are today. Each of us are entering new challenges every day and are better prepared together. At least I know that I am stronger with them around. They are gaining wisdom and life experience and are the kind of people I try to surround myself with. Tomorrow has great things in store and I want to do it with them. Not as a Dad, but as a Cosmo.

I hope that their dreams are big enough to include space for me to be generous with them in a way that encourages those dreams instead of “managing” them. I’m going to do my best to stop seeing them as the children they once were and embrace them as the leaders they have become. I hope they can appreciate how much I want them to save a space for me in their increasingly hectic lives.

I am so excited for each of their victories. As they expand their worlds, it doesn’t have to mean that my world shrinks. In the kingdom, there is more than enough room for us all. Our relationship will evolve as circumstances change and we value each other as God sees us, and not just as we are used to seeing each other. Then it will be even better than it was before.

Cosmo taught me that.