Can I Go, Mom?
This morning, I took a walk with the dog near the kids’ old elementary school. We drove past the school and, not wanting to be there when the teachers arrived, I stopped close to a nearby park so that the dog and I would have a little room to roam.
I remembered the park as being a tiny thing – just a little playground and a gazebo – but I was surprised that it also held a soccer field, two tennis courts, and a path with a little bridge over a stream.
I was also surprised at the memories that flooded back as soon as I stepped onto the grounds.
The park was empty; it was a cold, damp morning. But I saw a bright, spring day, the grass teeming with children. I saw toddlers in the gazebo, drinking from sippy cups, picking pebbles off the floor, their strollers sitting empty in the corners.
And on the playground, what I saw nearly broke me. I saw a merry-go-round that I’d pushed with both of my children hanging on and laughing: faster! faster! And I saw a winding, forest green, thick plastic sliding board – and Shane was sliding down, at the tender age of four, wearing his little jean jacket and his gold number 3 jersey.
Shane’s blond hair was standing straight up from the static on the slide. And he winced as he slid, knowing that static was going to shock him. I reassured him, as I always did, that a little static won’t really hurt.
And then, running from the playground, Dylan and his best friend, Zachary, were dashing across the field toward the little bridge. Dylan’s long, wavy hair flew behind him as he ran. Can I go, Mom? his eyes pleaded. He was so excited to be allowed to run more than 50 feet away from his mother – so excited to run anywhere at all.
I stood and watched him go, afraid to leave Shane but wanting to make sure Dylan and his friends were safe by the little stream. I’d always been so scared of allowing them near water.
But the stream is now dry. Its bed is full of stones, some of which were probably thrown by the boys back then, when they were seven. Long ago, those stones made a splash and the boys yelled with delight.
I walked over that bridge today, and around the soccer field, to avoid coming too close to the playground with its phantom children, my babies who are now grown and mostly gone.
I don’t think I will walk the dog there again.