Celebrating Jared`s B-Day

Today we are celebrating as our oldest son Jared turns twenty-two. It is his last day of classroom training to be a baking and pastry chef. He will be happy just to be done with school. Jared has never been a fan of sitting in the classroom. He would much rather just dig in and figure things out by doing it himself.

Even though he is not at all organized, leaves everything to the last minute before getting it done, and tends to avoid issues rather than addressing them Jared is a wonderful son. He is very creative, caring, hard working, honest, and is always ready to help someone else.

One of my favorite memories being Jared`s Mom took place on a chilly, windy, day in late fall. Jared was running at the teams home cross country meet. He was either in ninth or tenth grade at the time. Even though we always encouraged him to keep running I never had much fun standing out there freezing to watch him run. It is one of those events where you see them all line up for the start, they take off, and you can see them run for a couple hundred yards until they go over the hill. Then you stand around and wait for them to come back for the finish. While I was standing around waiting one of his coaches came over and introduced the parents of a runner competing for another team. They were telling how me terrific a kid Jared was, he was my kid and I pretty much knew how terrific he was already so I did not take to seriously what they were telling me. When Jared cam around to finish the race about in the middle of the pack as he usually did. he hopped on a golf cart with one of the couches and headed back out on the course. When they came to the point in the course where the last runner was Jared jumped off the cart and ran more then a mile to cross the finish line with the other kid. Jared told him that he had run a great race and shook his hand before returning to where the rest of his team was.

The kid that Jared had gone back to run with came over to say hi with his parents. He was a tall good looking boy with light blond hair. When he spoke it was clear that he had some type of disability. When he ran he had a rather awkward gait which impeded him. The kid`s parents told me that Jared had been doing this at all of the meets since their son had been competing.

Later when I asked Jared why he had gone back to run with the kid he simply said "no one wants to finish last alone every time". That is my terrific kid! Happy Birthday Jared!