He sits on a rock, reading, and I know already how this will play out, because he’s the one who asked to come here to the library playground, but that book is pulling him deeper into its pages, so my warning, “Five more minutes to play, Jadon,” goes unheard.
So when it’s time to leave, I’m already expecting that response, and I’m ready.
Except I’m not.
Because he tosses the book aside and is gone before I even blink, racing into the thin woods that surround this library.
Anger flames my face, but I do not follow because his brothers, littler than he, are still there on the playground. I do the only thing I know to do, walk his brothers back to the car and strap them in their seats and tell them to stay there until I get back, and then I crack the windows, lock the car and speed-walk the path through the woods so thin and close I can still see my boys’ heads in the backseat of the van.
Five minutes of calling his name, walking that path, and panic starts clogging my throat.
Is he hurt, lying somewhere unconscious that I can’t see and will probably never find? Did someone take him in those few minutes I didn’t follow? Did he run off for good like he always says he’s going to?
How do I ask for help and admit this failure? How do I keep looking alone, when panic has already blinded my eyes blurry? How do I tell his daddy he’s gone?
And then I see him, blue shirt flapping against his chest in the wind, standing beside our van like he’s waiting to get in, like he didn’t just run off and ignore my calls, like he intended to come home with us all along.
Anger trades places with panic.
He can see it on my face, this boy who perceives everything, and his eyes drop to the ground, but I only say, “Get in the car, Jadon,” and for once in his 7 years, he doesn’t argue.
“We’re going to talk about this at home because I feel too angry right now,” I say, backing the van out of the lot, and it’s the first time I’ve said those words, ever, because I am finally, finally beginning to learn how to control the tongue in those critical anger-moments, and most days I fail but some days, every once in a while, I win.
We pull into our drive, and I help his brothers out of the car, and he brings in all those library books that usually get left in the car, without my even asking him, and then he sits quietly in a chair, waiting. His daddy comes into the room because he wants to know what’s happened, how to explain a panicked text from me.
Our boy tells of how he sat on a rock to read and suddenly Mama told him it was time to go, and he felt angry, so he went to get some exercise (because the path through the woods has exercise equipment along its way), and as soon as he was done, he ran back to the car.
And then I tell him my side, how I saw a boy, angry, running off into the woods without one word, how I called his name and he didn’t answer and I searched high and low and couldn’t find him and thought someone had taken him or he’d run off for good, how I felt so, so, so scared that I had lost my beloved.
I hear it in the way he says, “I’m sorry, Mama,” how he means it, and I can see it in his eyes, what he has learned from this, and we spell it out for him, the consequence for this running off without using words. And even though I’d rather not have lived those five minutes of panic when a little boy seemed lost, I cannot help but think how valuable this has been for all of us, this getting a glimpse into another’s point of view and alternative experiences, how maybe this is a lesson in humility.
Because humility teaches us we don’t really know all there is to know about anything.
A viewpoint is exactly that, a view from a point, and we need each other to see wide and deep and sure.
There I was, assuming when my boy ran into the woods that he’d done it to punish me, because he knew exactly how scared I would be when I could not find him, but that 7-year-old had no idea how a Mama-mind works. My fear surprised him. He knew where he was. He was safe. He was in control. He could see me and his brothers and the van, too, from where he exercised.
But now he knows how a mama panics when she can’t find her boy, how his actions have a ripple effect, a phone call to a daddy, a scared little brother who thinks big brother is gone, a mama stuck and panicked and alone in those thin-but-still-dark woods.
This is valuable.
I wonder how many moments like this one I have missed because I let anger rule the day and did not seek to understand a child mind and heart, did not take the time to share my own mind and heart?
May we always see the wisdom of engaged conversation, even with the children. Especially with the children.
This is an excerpt from Family on Purpose Episode 1: January: We embrace wisdom. Spiritual Maturity. Humility. This episode will release Dec. 2. To learn more about Family on Purpose, visit the project landing page.
