His Own Path

My son Tim was a lot like me. And maybe that's why I worried about him

- RICK HAMLIN

The email from our son Tim came that November. He'd graduated from college and spent the following year living with us and taking care of kids - by being a "manny," as he termed it. Then he took everything he'd earned and traveled around the world, on the cheap. He'd been on the road since June with a few buddies, sending us the occasional email.

I was worried about Tim. He was a talented kid, smart, thoughtful, kind, but he seemed a little aimless. What was he going to do with his life once his wanderlust wore off? I didn't really want to compare him to his older brother, Will, the econ major, who got a job working for a big consulting firm right out of college. Will was launched. But for Tim, the history major, it was hard to know what shape his life would take.

He was musical, like me, and had done some theater in college, also like me. I'd gone to Italy where I studied voice for two years, earning a living by teaching English, before working as an actor and singer in both New York and Los Angeles. I certainly wasn't in anything anybody's ever seen, but I had been focused, hadn't I? Well, at least I thought so. By the time I gave up the acting bug and decided to become a writer and got that starting job at GUIDEPOSTS I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I was launched.

Would Tim ever be?

He was good with kids, but he never talked about becoming a teacher. He played the guitar and had sung in a rock band, but then again, it wasn't anything he seriously pursued. He'd been focused enough on this trip, determined even, traveling through Europe, North Africa, the Middle East. Nothing to worry us too much. (He didn't mention his trip through the Sinai Peninsula.)