The Pick Up

I’m on the mend, in fact, almost a 100%. I had wanted to get up to meet Miss Nicole’s new babe and snap a few pics for her but a touch of a stomach bug ripping through the gals in our house kept me at bay. Nothing serious, no fevers, no chills, just a violent tummy. But we’re better...almost, just got the call, my boy is now complaining of tummy aches.

I don’t know why I have to tell this story but I find for some reason it always touches me. I drive to pick up my boy from kindergarten each day and I often find myself stopped behind the same school bus. The first few times the bus stopped, I noticed that the father was waiting at the end of the driveway and I thought how nice it must be to have door to door service, a bit bitterly, I admit. As I watched the scene unfold, I knew intuitively that there was more to the situation than just an average drop off. Each day, the dad meets the bus at the end of the driveway, he waves to the driver before he boards the bus. A few moments later, while I am sure other waiting drivers are starting to lose their patience, the dad emerges with his teenage son. This young man is different in some way, just the way he walks and moves, the way his dad assists him, somehow you can sense that he is a unique child. I watch the dad and the son as they move fluently down the driveway together. The dad with his arm on the small of his son’s back, the way he looks at his son right in the eye and beams. You can almost reach out and touch the pride this dad feels for his boy, it’s in the way he moves him. It moves me. He guides him to their home and though I can’t see if the boy responds or if he replies to the words hid dad is saying, I am moved to the point of tears. Like I said, I feel like I a witness to an intimate relationship between a father and his son each day. It warms my heart and reminds me of the fact that we are first and foremost parents. Our kids grow older, they change and for most of us that means that the physical help we once provided is diminished as the kids learn to stand on their own. What doesn’t diminish is that need for touch, that need to tussle their hair, the need to hug them, that need to grab their hand and hold it whenever we can. Seeing a dad so uninhibited by the onlookers, so full of love and nurturing, well, that is something special. I look forward to seeing them each day and in that moment I always drive away feeling blessed to be a parent.