"As the last uniform slowly makes its way off the field, my eyes are drawn, as are everyone else's, to the lonely procession of heartbroken young men making their way to their last locker room. However, my thoughts are focused on a different scene, far away both in time and place.

Was it really nine years ago that the ecstatic blonde haired little boy came rushing home with a huge smile on his face wearing his first "tackle football" uniform? (And it was always "tackle football," to distinguish it from that faintly effeminate version that his rivals down the street played in short pants and flags.)

For years it had been soccer, which he had played with an unrestrained enthusiasm and a promptly forgotten final score. But now, it seemed, he had understood it was time to move on to that somehow more serious game that his father and uncles crowded around the TV set to watch on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

In his own mind, distantly, he had known it was time to graduate from short pants and participate in the right of passage whose significance he only vaguely understood.

I don't know how some kids realize this, that there's a certain activity appropriate to a certain time of life. Although we both recognized it was only a game, I knew - and he slowly realized - that there were lessons to be learned from this particular game that could not be duplicated in any other sport or even childhood itself. You can love a child, and you can get him everything you can possibly give.

But there are certain arduous realities that have to be learned. And certain ones are learned only by experience: the necessity of hard work, the importance of effort, the sanctity of loyalty, and the primacy of courage. This game once helped me learn those lessons, and the little boy somehow recognized his path.

The little soccer player quickly became the "tackle football player." As the years passed, the complaints about the "mean" coaches diminished, the tears flowed less often, the bruises became larger but less frequently discussed, and the clanging of the weights in the garage grew more frequent. The practices grew longer, more frequent, and more intense. The little boy was slowly learning what it means to become a man.

And as he grew up, perhaps inevitably, we grew apart, and this game sometimes became the currency of our relationship. I was not always the father I should have been and, truthfully, he was not always the son he could have been. After a certain age, trips to "31 Flavors" or to the movies cannot paper over the inevitable strains that occur between two overly strong-willed males.

But we always had The Game. Even when the strain was reaching the breaking point, we could sit in the same room and watch this game being played by strangers we would never meet. Unconsciously offered comments like "Nice hit" or "Lousy call" would evolve to "What would you call here?" And eventually to "So what is it you're all upset about?"

It was never my intention to use this game as a surrogate for being a father, but sometimes it seemed that way. Becoming a man means growing up and inevitably growing away from your childhood and its relationship with your father.

I could not, I discovered, teach my son everything that he needed to learn after all. Maybe that's the way it is with all fathers. I did what I thought was my best to instill values and hope, tempered by the understanding that your best is sometimes not good enough. Like tonight.

An era has ended with tonight's final gun, I know. I am and will forever be his father, of course. But the time has passed when we will discuss the events of the day's practice; anticipate the upcoming game, and how to improve on this facet or that. The mutual hopes and fears of this imaginary world we shared will vanish before the reality of his life ahead.

A common bond that has held us for nine years has ended tonight. In a few months (no more than a blink, really) it will be high school graduation, and then away to college where he will learn the remainder of the lessons that will carry him throughout life. And starting tonight I will be observing from afar, a participant no longer.

Did I do it right? Did I prepare this young man for what lies ahead? Did he learn the lessons every good man must learn?

And as that last figure disappears into the locker room, I watch the door close for the last time. But that's not what I see. It's the image of the overjoyed little boy and his first uniform with the smile his father will never forget. It's time to head home to a house that will forever seem a little emptier. The tackle football player has left the field.

Vaya con dios, young man."

A few years later, it seems like ages ago that I posted those thoughts. It is comforting -- and naïve -- to believe that at some point we live happily ever after. But it never happens. The cameras keep rolling. The trials and tribulations may wax and wane, but they never disappear. The young man in whom I placed so much hope didn't seem to share his father's perspective on goals and achievements.

The college football career and the education at a great university that beckoned did not hold sufficient attraction. An inexplicable apathy engulfed him and it was apparent that the tackle football player was not meant to parlay his high school achievements into either career or education. The proud achievements of the high school player faded into memory as though they had never occurred.

It has taken me a long time to realize that it is not the duty of a child to fulfill his father's well-intentioned ambition. I can say that now with the benefit of hindsight, but it is a lesson that is painfully learned, if at all. The relationship that was so oddly strained during the high school years steadily deteriorated to where eventually we were no more than strangers living in the same house.

It was unthinkable that things could have come to this pass, but despite the fact that I spent over 20 years intently watching this young man I could no more understand him than a total stranger. Eventually we had no more in common than a surname. It is a curious relationship to feel a lingering attachment to someone and yet to be continually furious with him.

It is easy to offer the parental advice to "Let him fail - he'll learn" when it is not your son who is actually failing. I am not accustomed to failure and to simply accept it -- which I should have -- was antithetical. A continuing cycle of misguided intervention and bitter resignation persisted. And we grew more and more distant, with no hope of reconciliation..........

" You enlisted in WHAT?"......... "What the hell is an 'Airborne Ranger'?"

I wonder how many millions of times that first question a stunned parent has asked. Had he done it to spite me? Or in my self-assured mind, had I underestimated a young man who never saw the point in taking classes that did not interest him or playing college football with people he did not know?

Could I have overlooked all these years the presence of a sense of duty, nobility, courage and a conviction that there was a more meaningful call on the horizon than satisfying his father's expectations?

"You realize that there is a war on? You know that if you do this you WILL be placed in harm's way? You WILL see combat?"

"Yeah." The laconic, nonchalant response that for years had seemed to me to signal a lack of motivation suddenly seemed to take on an alternate and far nobler indication. I think the word is "epiphany." What kind of country would we have, I realized, if there were no one willing to sacrifice all to fight for something he believed in?

The day of departure hung over my head like the Sword of Damacles. It would be the end of this family as I knew it, and I dreaded it as a turkey dreads Thanksgiving. But the day came.

What does a father who too late in the day realizes his failings and frailties say to a young man who aspires to a goal nobler than his father had ever considered? At times I can write clearly, but I cannot articulate feelings of regret, admiration, and affection stoically. A contrite and stumbling father bidding farewell to a reserved and still inscrutable son. I think I conveyed my feelings. I hope I did.

And in the final hour before he left, we did what we had always done when we were most comfortable together. We watched one last football game -- Green Bay and Carolina. "Nice hit." ...... "What would you call here?"....... And then he was gone.

Vaya con dios, son.

-Luca