I went dark last week.

Suzanne and I flew to San Antonio for Matthew's graduation from Air Force Basic Training, and we ended up spending 100% of our time focused on each other and on him. No blog post. No newsletter. Just us.

It was the right call.

The Graduation

Eight weeks ago, we sent our second son to Lackland Air Force Base. We prayed over him, blessed him, and let him go.

Last week, we watched him march across the parade ground with eight hundred other graduates.

The pride I felt was overwhelming - not just in him, but in all of them. Young men and women who signed up for something hard. Who got broken down and built back up. Who learned to work as a unit, to serve something bigger than themselves, to say "I'll go" when most people say "someone else will."

Matthew looks right at home in his uniform. He takes great pride in it - not a showy pride, but the quiet kind that comes from earning something. He talked about his flight, the men he went through it with, the ones who struggled and the ones who stepped up. He talked about Sundays at Mass and the priest who ministered to them. His appreciation for the experience was genuine and deep.

He's not the same person we dropped off. He's more.

What I Didn't Expect

I've always had a general citizen's appreciation for the military. I respected the service, thanked veterans when I saw them, understood abstractly that sacrifice was involved.

But I didn't really feel it. My connection was distant - through stories my grandpas told about their service, through movies, through the flag and National Anthem at ballgames and at the Muny.

Going through this with Matthew changed that.

What I didn't expect was how much being there - surrounded by hundreds of families who came from all over the country to see their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers graduate - would shift something in me.

I saw parents who hadn't hugged their child in two months. Spouses who had been holding everything together back home. Kids who didn't fully understand why Mom or Dad had been gone.

And I saw the goodbyes.

Matthew, as a member of the National Guard, came home the same day as us. He's waiting for his tech school date - active duty members take precedence on the slots - so we got to welcome him back to Granite City for a while.

But most families didn't get that. After two days together - two days of hugs and tears and catching up - they had to send their Airman on to the next several months of tech school. More separation. More waiting. More holding on from a distance.

I watched those goodbyes. The parents walking away. The spouses holding it together as they got back in the car.

That's when I understood something I hadn't before. The families serve too. They sacrifice too. And nobody gives them a uniform for it.

What It Costs

This Sunday's Gospel is about relationship and responsibility.

Jesus tells his disciples: if your brother sins against you, go to him. Talk to him. Do the hard work of staying in communion.

It struck me differently this week. Matthew counted a cost and said yes. The families I met in San Antonio have been counting it every day for months - and will keep counting it for years.

I'm proud of my son. But I'm also newly grateful for every military family I've ever walked past without really seeing. They're carrying something. They've said yes to something. And they deserve more than a "thank you for your service" on Veterans Day.

They deserve to be seen.

Home, For Now

Matthew is home. It sounds like for a few months, but we don't know exactly. We're soaking up every day.

Suzanne and I came back from San Antonio tired and full. The week was intense - the ceremony, the base tours, the time together, the emotions. We didn't have bandwidth for anything else. We didn't try to.

Sometimes the right thing is to go dark and be present.

That's what we did. And I'm grateful we could.