I've been writing letters to my son.

Matthew has been at Air Force Basic Training for two weeks now. I've sent several through Sandboxx - the app that lets you write to your recruit and have it printed and delivered. I've told him what's happening at home. I've told him we're proud of him. I've told him to do the next thing, find his brothers, pray even badly, go to Mass on the weeks he doesn't feel like it.

Those letters are private. They're between him and me.

But there's something I want to say publicly - not because he needs to read it here, but because some of you are living some version of this too. You've released a child into something you can't follow. You're waiting for a letter that hasn't come. You're wondering which seeds took root.

This is for you as much as it's for him.

The Silence

We haven't heard from Matthew yet, except for a brief phone call on night 2 and a text with a photo of a graduation invitation last week. That's normal, they tell us. The first few weeks are the hardest. They don't have time to write. When they do, the letters come in batches.

Suzanne is having a hard time with the quiet gap.

She's the one who held him first. She's the one who knew something was wrong before the doctors did, more than once. She's the one who took his lunch bag to school when he forgot it. And now she waits.

I tell her what I tell myself: no news is not bad news. He's fine. He's doing what he's supposed to do. The silence is part of the formation - for him and for us.

But the silence is hard. It's hard to love someone that much and not know how they're doing.

The Seeds

I keep thinking about seeds.

For eighteen years, Suzanne and I planted things in Matthew. Some of them we planted on purpose - the faith, the sacraments, the prayers before meals, the expectations about character and integrity and showing up. Some of them we planted without knowing - the way we handled conflict, the way we talked about other people, the way we lived when we thought no one was watching.

We don't know which seeds took root. We never do. That's the hardest part of parenting: you plant for years, and then you release, and then you wait.

I think about my own father. I think about Grandpa Halbrook. I think about the men who planted seeds in me that I didn't recognize until decades later - Jim Dedera, Bruce Sanders, coaches and teachers and priests whose words and actions are still growing in me.

They didn't see the harvest. Most of them never will. But the seeds were good, and the soil received them, and here I am - still becoming what they planted.

That's what I'm trusting now with Matthew. The seeds were planted. The word went out. And it will not return void.

And here's what I didn't expect: Matthew planted seeds in us too.

He planted steadiness - the quiet kind that finishes what it starts without needing applause. He planted the example of a young man who claimed his faith when a lot of men his age were putting theirs down. He planted something in his brothers just by being who he was.

And right now, in this silence, he's still planting. He's teaching us what we always knew but never had to live: that we raise our children to let them go. They're God's. They were always God's. We were given them to protect, to provide for, to steward for a time - and then to release.

The formation goes both ways. It always did.

The Blessing

The day he left, I laid my hands on his head and blessed him.

Andrew and Joseph were there. Suzanne was there. I prayed the blessing for a departing airman:

All-powerful and ever-living God, when Abraham left his native land and departed from his people, you kept him safe through all his journeys. Protect this airman. Be his constant companion and his strength in battle, his refuge in every adversity. Guide him, O Lord, that he may return home in safety.

I've laid hands on hundreds of people at the altar. But this was my son.

That's what ordination is for. Not just for strangers. For the people closest to you, in the moments that matter most.

And now I trust that the blessing landed. That the word went out and will do its work. That the same God who kept Abraham safe will keep Matthew safe - not from hardship, but through it.

What I Know

Here's what I know after two weeks of silence:

I know that Matthew was made for something. I watched him as a little boy, obsessed with planes - the toys, the books, the way he looked up every time something crossed the sky. I didn't understand then what I was watching. I understand it now. The Lord plants things in us early and lets them grow quietly for years. Matthew is living out a thread that was there all along.

I know that he can do hard things. I've watched him finish what he started when no one would have blamed him for stopping. Basic Training is designed to find the place where a man quits. I've watched Matthew for eighteen years, and I've never seen that place in him.

I know that he's not alone. The same God who was with Abraham, who was with Joseph in Egypt, who was with Daniel in Babylon - that God is with Matthew at Lackland. He got there before Matthew did.

And I know that the seeds were planted. By us, by the Church, by the parish, by the altar servers who became his brothers. We did what we could. We planted what we had. And now the harvest belongs to God.

For the Other Parents

If you're reading this and you've released a child into something you can't follow - military, college, marriage, a city far away, a life you wouldn't have chosen for them - I want you to hear this:

The seeds you planted are still growing.

You don't control the soil. You don't control the harvest. You don't even get to watch most of it happen. But the word you sent out - the prayers, the presence, the ordinary faithfulness of showing up for eighteen years - that word will not return void.

Keep writing the letters. Keep praying the prayers. Keep trusting the Sower behind you.

And when the silence gets hard, remember: He got there before they did. He's closer to them than they are to themselves. And He's not done with the seeds you planted.

Matthew, if you ever read this:

I'm proud of you. Not proud of what you're becoming, as if you're a project. Proud of you, right now, in the middle of it.

Your mother misses you. Your brothers are proud of you in the way brothers are proud, which means they'll never tell you directly.

Home is here. It stays here. It'll be here in August.

We love you. We're praying for you. And we'll be in San Antonio to see you graduate.

Chin up. Eyes forward. One step, then the next.

Dad

If this resonated with you, I'd be honored if you shared it with someone who might need to hear it - especially a parent who has released a child into something they can't follow.