5:30 PM and I am sitting in a large, brightly lit room. It
is an even 80 degrees and people are sitting,
lined up against the walls, watching the scenes directly in front of them.
There are raucous shouts and squeals, as some 30 odd kids, in all shapes and
colours and sizes and ages, splash merrily in their lanes, mimicking what their
coach asks them to do. I have a ½ hour to kill, and I have already decided to
take along some of Winkie’s worksheets to review.
He has been working hard all summer, refining some math
skills and gaining efficiency in his problem areas with some English also thrown in to keep him interested, so the
numbers wouldn’t get the better of his enthusiasm. I have my bright pink felt tip pen for the task, and review
all his trade first subtraction problems. He is definitely having a problem
with it, and I mentally decide that he needs another fresh worksheet just to
get over this hump. From time to time, I am watching the boys in their lanes,
but only cursory glances, for today I am more intent on the task at hand.
I look up and glance at Winkie’s direction and he is
looking straight at me, his eyes meeting mine. He is trying to tell me
something, and from his signing, I understand that he wants me to keep watching
him. And just like that, the air is charged with something different. There is
a higher prupose now, to my time. My child wants me to do something for him,
and I have it well within my power to do that. And by God, I would do it right.
I watch him do his dolphin kicks, graceful at times, struggling at times, but
making it from one end to the other. He has almost made it, when the sense of
anticipation in me is just bursting. I can’t wait for him to get there and wipe
his eyes, and look back over at me, secure in the belief that I would still be
watching.
It is so heady, knowing that this is one sure moment I can
count on. We cannot predict what can happen an hour, or even 10 minutes from
now, for so many familiar equations can change in that time. But with just under
3 seconds to go, before he reached and looked at me, there was a delicious instinctive
sense of “knowing”. That it would
happen.
Even now, I don’t quite know why it stood out to me so much.
What was it about that moment, that made me suck my breath in, and hold it
tight, all keyed up for when he would make eye contact with me again. Maybe it
was simply the joy of being fully conscious at that time, knowing for sure,
that I was going to be there for my son. Or maybe a part of it was derived from
the sense of control you feel, when you know exactly what will happen in just a
short while, and yet it is exciting and novel, and it happens in precisely the
fashion you expect it to.
So much of our life is played down due to failed
expectations. This was one moment that exceeded it!
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