We're in the parking lot and I instinctively reach back. A little hand fills mine, and all is right with the world. We're at the store and I reach back again. Once again my empty hand is filled by a much smaller one, and we're on our way. It's ordinary, everyday life for us, this hand-in-hand journey through the aisles of Walmart, through the library parking lot, through the crowded mall.Joshua's hand has always fit into mine so snugly, so well. In the beginning, it was his whole hand wrapped around my first finger. Then the rest of my hand wrapped around his. Lately it's changed a little, and he puts his whole little hand right into mine. He doesn't notice, but it feels so different to me. My little boy is getting bigger.
Jonah used to need two hands to hold on to, in his voyage of non-walking. (Remember, he's only 13 months, and Tim and I don't produce children who will walk before, say, 16 months . . . please, oh please, let him be walking by the time he gets to kindergarden!) Standing behind him, he'd grasp an index finger in each chubby hand, and hold on like there was no tomorrow. Let go of him? Unheard of! Just the idea of not walking around the house with him for hours . . . hunched over in lower-back agony . . . pleading for a significant other to please, just come walk him, would produce wails from the pit of his being. Now he's a great little creeper, and can manage just fine, thank you, with only one index finger to cling to.
I like the hand-holding. I like the security of knowing exactly where Joshua is, wherever we are. Okay, I also like the control of being able to pull him away from the decorative glass orbs placed dangerously on the floor at Kirkland's. That's an added benefit. I like helping Jonah along on his path to independence.
And then the other day I reached back expectantly, knowing that the warmth of a three year old hand would instantly fill mine, and the comfort and the ritual would continue. I waited for the hand to slip seamlessly into mine . . . and I waited some more . . . and no hand ever came. Maybe Joshua was too far away and had yet to catch up, but was hurrying toward my outstretched hand? Maybe he'd stopped to poke at something interesting, a flower, or some dirt, or some really gross old gum dried on the ground? And it was none of these, because the truth of it was that he was walking right along next to me, and when he saw my hand reach for his, he decided not to hold it that day. My hand dropped to my side, feeling as empty as my heart. Truly, life does move on.
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