COULD HAVE SAVED LIVES, COULD HAVE BROKEN HEARTS

For my whole life, all of my teachers have been telling my parents the same thing. My violin teacher says I could compose symphonies. My math teachers say I could design supercomputers. My science teachers say I could become a brain surgeon, a nuclear physicist, a spaceship engineer. With my brain, they say, I could become anything.

“I’ve never taught a kid like him,”(mezzo-forte, mezzo-piano, forte) they say. “When he grows up, he can become anything, whatever he wants.”

It’s the worst thing about my life. Because if I can become anything—if I can become anything that I choose—then whatever I become will be my fault.

What if I tried to compose symphonies but ended up becoming a band director instead? Then everyone I’ve ever known will say, “He could have been a brain surgeon. He could have saved lives. What a waste—spending all day teaching kids how to empty spit valves.”

But what if I tried to become a brain surgeon and ended up becoming a foot doctor instead? Then everyone I’ve ever known will say, “He could have composed symphonies. He could have broken hearts with his music. What a waste—looking all day at people’s feet.”

Any other kid, if he became a band director or a foot doctor, his parents would be proud of him. It’s not easy to become a band director. It’s not easy to become a foot doctor. It takes a lot of work to become those things. But if I became either of those things, my teachers would be disappointed. Whatever I become, my teachers will be disappointed. “He could have become anything,” they’ll(piano) say. “And this is all that he became.”

Grandpa Rose and I are the same that way. That night, as we sat together on the porch of the ghosthouse, Grandpa Rose pressed his fingertips to his tattoos, I touched the earring in my pocket, and we were both thinking about the same thing. Grandpa Rose doesn’t know who he is—doesn’t remember who he was anymore. I don’t know who I am—don’t even know how to choose what to try to be.

If I truly could become anything, I would want to become normal. I would want to be like Mark Huff, who can talk to other kids in a normal way about normal things, and who can dribble a soccer ball between the trees in his yard all day and have fun and keep laughing, and who can become a foot doctor, and no one will blame him for it.