BECOMING

It was eight years ago that I first held my very own little bundle of 6 pound humanity. His big, watery blue eyes stared up at me from under a tiny hospital cap, with wonder, potential, and hope as big as any ocean. So many things became real to me at that moment. I knew he would be beautiful. I knew he would be intelligent. I knew he would be amazing. I knew he would someday become a man. I knew that some day I would have to let him go. Someday he wouldn't need me so much. Someday he would have to figure out who he was going to be. Someday I would have to hold him not quite so tightly, and let him...be...let him...become.

Someday has a way of sneaking up on us.

A couple of days ago, after finishing his schoolwork, Ethan asked permission to go outside and see if his friends could play. There are two new boys near his age living across the street from us and he has developed a friendship with the younger of the two. I watched out the window as he hopped on his scooter and raced down our driveway over to theirs. I could see him in their garage at the doorway to their house, talking to someone. I stepped outside to make sure it was ok for him to be there and he sped back over to me, his face flushed from the crisp air and alight with excitement.
"Mom! Mom! Wilson and Grant are going to the old barn in the field, can I go with them?" he asked hopefully.
"What old barn?" I asked, confused.
"That one," he replied, pointing to an old dilapidated structure adjacent to our neighbors house, in the middle of an overgrown cow pasture.
I eyed the decrepit skeleton suspiciously. The barn was far enough away that I had never even noticed it before. The thought of allowing my dear son to venture that far, much less enter it, caused my stomach to tighten.
"Oohhhh...I don't know, buddy. I've never been out there. I don't know what's in it," I said slowly.
"Wilson and Grant and Grant's friend Ross are going. It will be fine!" he assured me.
All kinds of scenarios flashed into my mind at that moment. Visions I don't even want to mention for fear of speaking them into existence. I became even more hesitant to answer his request. Just then, Wilson and Grant's mom appeared in her driveway and sensed my reluctance.
"We all walked over there yesterday," she explained, "there's nothing in there, it's really neat for the boys. I'm going to let mine go for a little while. I understand how you feel, though. If I hadn't been there myself I probably wouldn't let them go, either."
I looked at my son's hopeful expression and pleading eyes. A huge part of my heart said "Bring him inside! Protect him! Don't let him do it!!!" But something else told me quietly, "This is important for him. He can't be your baby forever."
I could see that the seconds I was taking to debate myself were turning into an eternity for Ethan. I took a quick breath and exhaled loudly, in a subconscious effort to blow my worries away and said, "Alright. Let's go inside so you can change into some old shoes, in case it's muddy out there." From the expression on his face you would have thought that he had just been handed his own set of keys to the City of Real Men. He sprinted into the house, changed shoes, and skipped back out, ready for his adventure.
I watched the 4 boys run into the field. They were partially hidden by the weeds that reached to their shoulders. I watched until I could no longer see his little dirty blond head bouncing up and down through the brush. And I prayed. For the longest 38 minutes of my life, I prayed. I thought of him as a baby, sleeping contentedly in my arms. As a toddler, needing my hand as he learned to find his balance. As a preschooler, knocking me down with his enthusiastic hugs.
For the first time, i realized something..having your children close to you all the time can be hard. But watching them walk away is even harder.
My heart was in my throat when he arrived back home. I was standing in the front yard watching him jog back. He had a spring in his step. He held his head a little higher. Did he even look a little taller? I couldn't resist opening my arms to embrace him. I held him tightly for one brief moment and took a deep breath. I could smell it....the scent of change. The intoxicating scent of joy. The fragrance of a child with a song in his heart, pride in his puffed out chest, and the realization of who he was becoming.
I lifted his chin to look into his eyes. "How was it buddy?"
"It was awesome Momma!" he exclaimed. He began talking so fast that all I could catch were snippets having to do with "indians", "poking the fur with a stick", "something moving in the woods...but we weren't afraid!", and "it sounded like a jaguar".
"So you're glad you went?" I asked.
"So glad, Momma! I was so happy. So happy that I felt like I wanted to cry from being happy. But I didn't want to cry in front of the guys just for being happy. And they said I'm in their group now! I'm one of the guys now!"
I hid a few tears behind a smile and tousled his sweaty hair, "That's great! I'm glad you had so much fun!"
He ran off to tell Asa of his adventures.
I stood alone and thought about the changes coming.
The path we started down when he was born is more dynamic every day. It began as one narrow way. So narrow that I had to hold him against me for us both to fit on it together. As time goes by, it has widened enough for me to put him down to walk beside me. At times, he has run ahead, excited to be finding the path getting even broader, while I have lingered behind, trying to savor just a few more steps on the tighter way. But I pick up my pace, not wanting to let him out of my sight. I have accepted that the path will change. And now I have seen where it begins to fork. His path to becoming a young man runs parallel to my path to becoming the mother of a young man. Right now, I can still see him through the thin row of scattered trees. I can still reach out and touch him between the branches. But I must let him stay on his path, and I on mine. I will run when he jogs. I will rest when he sits. And, though he may never know it, I will cry when he falls. And I will trust that, in the times that the forest grows too thick for me to touch him, he is protected.
And I will find joy for him...joy for me...in our intertwined but separate paths...to becoming.