Prompt: Jay Pritchett - "There's all kinds of milestones in life. The kind you expect to live through - first kiss, birthdays, graduations, if you're lucky, a wedding or two, or even a new addition to the family. Then there's the kind you never dreamed you'd get to live through again. And that's the best kind of all." - 'Modern Family'
"Here you go," Carole said, handing me a cup of lemonade to me as she took the seat next to me. "I told you there would be plenty of time," she added as she settled down beside me.
"I just didn't want to take a chance of missing anything," I told her as people continued to fill the amusement park amphitheater.
"It's just a cheesy amusement park show. Would missing some of it really matter," Finn muttered unenthusiastically from the row behind me.
I understood how he was feeling. At his age, I would have rather been enjoying the rides over sitting in the park's amphitheater myself. But then at that age, life seemed infinite. I may have graduated high school, experienced my first kiss, survived wearing a tuxedo to my senior prom, and proposing to Kathleen, but there had been so much more to look forward to. Milestones that I just took for granted until I was faced with the possibility of not living long enough to see my own son graduate college or fulfill his dream.
"It's a half hour long show, Finn," I replied, referring to the production that Kurt had let Blaine talk him into doing this summer before they both headed for New York in the fall. "Smile, and applaud your brother and his fiancé and then we'll do whatever you want to do for the rest of the day," I offered, more than okay with referring to Blaine as Kurt's fiancé.
When Blaine had originally asked my permission to ask Kurt, I hadn't been okay with it. Now though, I realized I had no right to ask them to wait. Now was the time for all of us to be living. If they wanted to do that together, who was I to take that joy away from them.
As Finn muttered his agreement to the terms, I slipped my hand into Carole's as the curtain rose. Maybe this wasn't Broadway, but not long ago I was wondering if I would ever get to see my son perform on stage again. As I watched curtain enter from the left side of the stage, I knew that this would be the best performance I had ever seen from him, simply because I was here to see it.