42 Heavy-Metal Bands, 2,000 Fans, My Son and Me When my son Dylan was 18, he asked me to accompany him on a Royal Caribbean cruise. But this wasn't your normal cruise. This one was called 70,000 Tons of Metal, and it featured 42 heavy-metal bands and 2,000 metal fans. I did not like heavy-metal music, and I did not particularly like my son very much those days, either. He was no longer the little boy who cuddled with stuffed animals, or the preteenager who took culinary classes with me, or the competitive water polo athlete. He wasn't just an ordinary teenager who rolled his eyes and walked 10 paces ahead of me, either. He had grown into someone dark and angry, and when I was with him, I either felt like I was isolated in a psychological freezer or needed to hide in a bunker. He had called me unthinkable names and shattered my heart to smithereens. When he asked me to go on the cruise, I knew it wasn't because he wanted to spend time with me. He needed a chaperon that was over 21. I was a necessary inconvenience. And of course I said yes, because a mother never gives up hope. Once on board, I immediately worried about my decision. The passengers wore black T-shirts with words like "Dark Tranquillity," "Death Angel" and "Rage" printed on the front and images of skulls, daggers and dead babies on the back. They were tattooed and pierced, loud and boisterous. They listened to grating electric guitars. They screamed and growled to the music as though being tortured. They sang lyrics about death and dismemberment. One afternoon, the sun beat down hard on the 11th deck, while I watched from the 12th deck above. Hundreds of drunken fans squeezed onto a temporary floor built atop a swimming pool. A concert was in full motion; the drums were thudding in my gut and longhaired musicians were banging their heads around midair. Suddenly, a strong man with a sunburned scalp pulled both arms back and shoved an unsuspecting fan beside him. Another fan bolstered up those who had fallen, and pushed the sunburned man back. Soon everyone was being shoved about and into one another. Some fell to the ground, some spilled their beer. One man got a bloody lip. The music grew louder and more frenzied - it seemed the musicians were intentionally fueling the chaos - and my heart raced in panic as I scanned the scene for Dylan, hoping he was nowhere nearby and wondering what, if anything, I could do to protect him. It wasn't like I could climb over the railing and leap down to save him. I felt like I'd lost my chance to pull him out of these scenes. It was pure luck that he wasn't in the middle of this one. Although I worried about the influence this culture would have on my son, something remarkable happened. Mom? Dylan came into our cabin each night quietly and turned on his laptop. In the glow of the computer screen, I saw that old smile on his face, the old twinkle in his gray-green eyes. I propped myself up on an elbow and listened to his animated dissertation about the day: the bands he saw, the people he met, the T-shirts he bought. He even tried to educate me about the music, the different subgenres, the meaning behind the violence. "It's about social issues, freedom of thought and power," he said one night, sounding not unlike the messages in the music of my youth. And when he was done and turned off his computer, I lay back and listened to him pulling off his clothes and slipping under the sheets. I waited to hear the rhythmic sound of his breath after he fell asleep, just like when he was little. I treasured every second of it, taking it all in, right down to the smell of his dirty socks on the floor between our beds. On the last evening of the cruise, Dylan and I passed each other near the outdoor stage. When I saw him, I knew not to acknowledge him, as that had been the unspoken rule before the cruise began, and I prepared to look away. But as he passed me by, I couldn't help but glance at him - children, even grown ones, are magnets for a mother's eyes - and what I saw shocked me. There he stood, his right hand held close in to his chest, his fingers waving at me. He was acknowledging my presence in the midst of this dark otherworld. He was once again accepting me into his life. I still don't particularly like metal music or the metal culture. But that cruise gave me the opportunity to see that Dylan was still the good person I knew he was, despite his choice in music. And it gave us the opportunity to set things right in our relationship. For these reasons, I can honestly say I'm grateful for metal music. It brought my son back to me.