My 11-year-old son is kind of a genetic anomaly. My wife and I were pretty good students and are fairly intelligent, though I have a tendency to be clueless about a lot of things. Still, he is more than just a good student – he is a bit of a brain.

I say this with great humility – and fear!

Right now, I can go to Google or B.S. my way through his questions to sound like I know more than he does, but I know that day is coming when I will not be able to answer his questions, or even understand them. If my brain is up to the challenge, I expect to learn many things from him.

Recently, he taught me a lesson I hope to never forget – a life lesson.

He has just embarked on a 30-day trip, with his grandfather and his 12-year-old cousin, to explore the national parks out West. The trip was planned a year ago and has produced varying and vacillating levels of excitement and trepidation, mostly within his parents and siblings, and just prior to the trip in him, as well.

The night before they left was difficult on all of us. We had a little goodbye cookout at my father-in-law’s place. I knew my wife would cry. I figured my daughter and youngest son would cry. I knew I would be sad but would rationalize it and mostly focus on the wonderful opportunity he was going to have.

What I did not know was how sad he would be before he left.

He cried. He cried hard. Hard enough for us to question whether this was a good thing for him to do and whether he was just too young to be gone for this long. We were waiting for him to change his mind and say he did not want to go, but to his credit, he just asked us, through his tears, to head home. So we did, leaving him with his cousin and grandfather.

What impressed me was he showed the strength to embrace and express the intense sadness he was feeling, and still make the decision to carry on with his plans. I, on the other hand, would have tried to suppress the emotional part of it all and just focus on the positive aspects of the trip, to make the decision easier.

I love Star Trek and am proud to say I have passed that on to him. So to use a Star Trek reference, while I tend to be a bit more of a Vulcan when it comes to emotions, my son taught me what it means to be human.

I look forward to the academic concepts I will learn from him in the future, but I will treasure the life lessons.

By the way, he called us the first few nights and it was great to hear the excitement in his voice. Lately, because of spotty cellular service, we only hear from him every few days, if we are lucky.

I miss him dearly, but actually think it is a good thing we do not talk every day. It will make the stories and lessons he shares when he gets home all the more memorable.