I can feel the momentum building with each passing day. It was another beautiful day in camp; temperatures reached the eighties with just enough humidity to help our boys break a good sweat without emptying their tanks during team competitions. Our campers move around this facility with ease and comfort that lets me know that they feel at home. This place is now their big playground, and they move from sports to hobbies and down to the waterfront, as though they grew up here.
While sitting in my office today, one of my thirteen-year-old campers came in to speak with me. He recently broke his finger, and I was sure he was coming to see me about his disappointment in having his program marginalized because of his unfortunate injury. When he sat down on my couch, tears started to fall down his cheeks. I moved closer to let him know that he had my undivided attention, and I was prepared to respond with a list of activities he could do that wouldn’t need the use of his hand while he was nursing his injury. Before I could enlist my suggestions, he blurted out that he was just so happy to be in camp that he needed to come into my office to personally thank me. With a twinkle in his eye and a little smirk, he commented that he wasn’t even sure why this moment brought him to tears. He acknowledged his happiness, his joy for seeing his friends, his excitement for this long-awaited reunion, and not even an injury could damper his spirits.
Last night as I addressed the entire camp at our opening campfire, I remarked that a year ago I entered the campfire ring alone. Back then, I looked at the benches on the lowest level of our amphitheater and wondered what our first-year campers were doing. What were the boys scheduled to come last summer doing now that our camp was not in session? My eyes scanned to the upper rows where I could picture our oldest boys, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, swaying as they sing the camp alma mater at the closing council fire. It saddened me to think of what we couldn’t provide and what our boys had lost, but it thrilled me to see our entire camp community come back together as one. I impressed upon our campers and staff that this was like nothing that they had ever experienced, that each of us was challenged to make sacrifices and adapt to a lifestyle that none of us wanted to embrace. This is self-reliance, one of our arch ideals, and it was clear that our youngest campers all the way up to our oldest boys and staff could exhale and let go of what we were forced to endure. If there’s a silver lining, our boys now have a perspective that may help them roll with the punches, keep life in its proper perspective, have more tolerance, patience, and empathy. All of the skills we know are critical to having a great time at camp and navigating through our complex world.
As I sat in my office with my thirteen-year-old camper, I couldn’t help but feel that his tears were his way of releasing the challenges that he faced during this unprecedented time.
