My baby boy has made history yet again!

On Saturday, January 24 (on this side of the date line; Sunday for him), Alex Honnold, my son, climbed the outside of the Taipei 101, which for many years was the tallest building around. 101 stories. Now, it’s the tallest building ever climbed free solo (without rope or protection).

History was made. After his free solo climb in 2017 of El Capitan, in Yosemite, it seemed unlikely that he’d ever surpass that. But he found a way. Not for the history or glory or fame, but simply because he wanted to. Really, really longed to. For years. Over a decade.

Now, after the fact, the media are asking, “What does his mom think? Was she nervous? Could she watch?!” The answer might be different from what you expect.

I’ve had decades to accept what my son does. To embrace it as part of the young man I love. Once he was old enough to go on climbing trips with his friends, many of whom were vastly older than him, I had to accept the fact that each time he left the house, I might never see him again.

That’s true, of course, of everyone. You could get hit by a bus. A truck could jackknife in front of your car on the freeway. Something could fall out of a window high above. Your commuter train could derail. In some cities, a stray bullet could have your name on it.

But, people say to that, he ups the ante! He takes risks the rest of us don’t. Yes. And no.

We, the watchers, can clearly see the consequence, if he falls. But the only one who can truly judge the risk is Alex. He knows how his fingers feel. How much he has trained for his project. How he slept the night before. He knows how the wind feels, how humidity is affecting his grip. Only he knows these things. We cannot. We can’t judge the risk.

Do I wish he had a different ‘job’? A meaningless question. No other job would fulfill him, as climbing does. Nothing else would make his heart sing with joy! If he’d become a civil engineer (what he studied during his one year at Berkeley), I’d be proud of him too. But only if it filled that ‘passion pocket’ that we all seek to fill (whether we realize it or not).

Climbing does for Alex what playing keyboards does for me. I can’t imagine living without it. I wouldn’t want to. Satisfaction is a pale word, but the extreme satisfaction that comes from setting a goal, training and reaching it just can’t be achieved by anything less than the goal that your heart sets for you.

The first time I climbed up into the organ loft at St. Nick’s parish high school, to play for graduation, I felt it. The immense power of a pipe organ is ineffable.

“An organist,” you think, “ho hum. Every parish has one.” But for a little kid from an immigrant neighborhood to control such power, such immense sound, defies words. If I’d been trained to do that, it might have felt different. Less. But like my son, I taught myself. Like Alex, I did my own homework, my own research, my own practicum. Playing the piano at home was my training; playing the organ at St. Nick’s or founding and conducting my community orchestra for the first time years later, those were my Taipei 101. My El Cap. (No, wait, I have my own El Cap… but that’s another story.)

There are haters, of course. “It’s selfish,” some people comment. “He has kids.” Yes, he does, and he loves them very much. And he wants them to see how important it is in life to pursue a goal that your heart craves, that you dream about when you’re supposed to be tending to life stuff, like the rest of us.

The ‘kid-in-a-candy-store’ smile he flashed to onlookers on his way up said it all. Such deep fulfillment comes only from achieving what you’ve dreamed of for a very long time.

I wish you all that feeling, at least once in your life.