In Good Hands

This is the earliest I've been up on a Saturday in as long as I can remember.  Earlier in fact than my work day  regimen.  I've forgotten how much I appreciate witnessing the transformation of night to day.  It is a religious act to notice the first blush of light unfold in a sky still slightly shimmering with stars.  It amazes me how subtle the shift is from twilight to dawn to sunrise and yet how startling the difference between night and day.  If you blink you could almost miss it, but there's no mistaking the birth of a brand new day.

It snowed  some overnight...not much, but we'll take what we can get.   The encroaching morning light revealed a world whitewashed.  T. Bone couldn't have been happier.  He woke up and the first words out of his mouth contained a greeting to the mountain  big hill he will meet today.  Soon after I left a quadrant of my heart in a van filled with boys and gear bound for a weekend of skiing and snowboarding..

I exchanged a few necessities with the mom now in charge most important among them : a hug.  Our embrace was her palpable reassurance from one mama to another that he's in good hands, which I don't doubt...his, her's, His..   I say goodbye to him every day as I send him forth into the world.  Usually, I don't think much about it.  It's just what I do. Then every once in awhile, it strikes me how independent he's becoming...become..and the truth is I just get a little verklempt.  Verklempt because believe me I've been watching, yet I still cannot explain how this has happened.

The only alternative to getting in their jam packed van was getting in my own and driving away.  Before I did T. Bone yelled, I love you Mom!  My heart swelled.  While he's not stingy with these words, they're not often pronounced in front of an audience of peers.

On the way home, I said a little prayer asking that my son be protected and come home safe to me.  It was then that I noticed the aurora of a new day.  It was just like the hug.  His reassurance...from papa to mama... that T. Bone's in good hands.