Rolling Away from Me

Click, clack. Click, clack.

My tow-headed six-year-old careens in front of me on the sidewalk, his red Transformers helmet glinting in the sun.

"I'm doing it!" Jackson cries.

"Great job" I call as he rolls away from me on his hand-me-down blue skates.

It's a beautiful afternoon, with a slight nip in the air and a bright, cloudless sky. I smile and murmur a prayer of thanksgiving for Fall.

Autumn has always been my favorite season. I love candy corn, stores full of toddlers' Halloween costumes, and desks full of new school supplies. But there's a little bit of melancholy to Fall, too, which fits my personality. Seeing the trees losing their leaves brings a longing for permanence; I understand that they have to release their foliage to prepare for next year’s growth, but I still feel a twinge of sadness when I hear that crunch under my feet.

On this particular October day, my youngest and I have come outside to practice his new favorite sport and enjoy the weather.

"Mommy, look!" Jackson shouts. He's skated down the sidewalk and is almost to the corner.

"Wow!!" I say, shaking my head. "I can't believe you've only done this once before."

It’s no wonder Jax is comfortable rollerblading already—he has always been the risk-taker of my two boys. He's a ready-fire-aim kind of kid, which explains the two CT scans he's had, not to mention a few of the grey hairs on my head.

But today, he skates at just the right speed, correcting himself quickly when he loses his balance. At one point he falls on his bottom, but he gets right back up, looking at me with a crooked grin. “That didn’t hurt!” he says.

I keep thinking about how just a minute ago he was holding my hand. A couple of minutes ago, he was the three-year-old who smothered me with kisses when I picked him up from Mother's Day Out. Five minutes ago, I rocked him to sleep and marveled over his long brown eyelashes, perfect red lips, and chubby cherub cheeks.

I know that one day, in the way-too-soon future, he'll be rolling away from me in a car. With a girl. Who will never love him the way I do. And she'll treat him terribly, and he won't listen to me and then she'll snare his heart and take the grandchildren far, far away so that I never see him, or them.

But I digress.

“Mommy, am I doing good?” Jackson asks, turning around cautiously and skating towards me.

“You’re doing great, sweetie.” He passes me, holding out his hand for a brief high five.

I take a deep breath, clear the lump from my throat, and decide that perhaps there's a reason this season speaks to me.

The trees are better at letting go than I am.

Image by Bill Keaggy. Used with permission. Sourced via Flickr. This post is an edited reprint by Welcome Editor Dena Dyer, author of Grace for the Race: Meditations for Busy Moms.