On the 'virg' of two great achievements

For the last 18 months or so, my son has been working toward two great goals.

A short time after graduating magna cum laude from Cal State Northridge, Virgile decided that he wanted to follow his sister into the Foreign Service. He also decided that he wanted to complete an Ironman Triathlon. Either one of those goals would be daunting to the average person. Both together made me want to curl up in a corner and whimper.

The Ironman is one thing. The one he set sail for will be held in Nice, France, on June 28th. He'll swim 3.8 kilometers in the Mediterranean Sea, bicycle 180 kilometers and then run 42.195 kilometers.

For those who are metrically illiterate like me, that's about a 2-mile swim, a 112-mile ride and a 26.2-mile run. It'll take somewhere in excess of 11 hours.

He tells me that theoretically, anybody could do it as long as they didn't care about their time. I'm not sure. I know I couldn't swim two miles in open water.

He has been working toward this by training almost every morning. Some days he swims, some days he rides and other days he runs. He has competed in shorter events all around the West Coast, but June 28th will be his first shot at the whole magilla.

At the same time, he has been working toward succeeding at the highly competitive Foreign Service Officer exams. Six months ago, he took and passed the written exam, the first stage that qualifies people for the oral exams.

That's a pretty big accomplishment in itself. Most folks don't pass phase one.

But this week he went to Washington, D.C., for the oral exams. It was such a thrill to get the call yesterday.

"I passed, Dad."

Of course he did. I wanted to explain to him that I had expected nothing less, but I was afraid he would misunderstand.

It isn't that I demand success from him, or that I would be disappointed in him if he didn't succeed. Neither of those is true. What I meant when I say I expected it is that I have complete and total confidence in both my children. Both Virgile and Pauline are wonderful kids who don't settle for anything less than success.

When they're going after something, I don't worry that they won't get it. I know they will.

There's a scene in the Robin Williams movie "What Dreams May Come" where he tells his son that if he ever had to storm the gates of Hell, he's the one person he would want with him. Well, that's how I feel about my kids. If I ever had to undertake some seemingly impossible life or death quest and could have one person at my side, it would be Pauline or Virgile.

The whole thing with the foreign service reminded me of when I first became Virgile's dad. Nicole and I married when he was 7, and we agreed that he would call me "Dad."

He did come up with one humorous alternative.

"Can I call you 'Officer?'"

With that in mind, and thinking of the job he just qualified for, I guess I can say this:

"Well done, Officer."