It was an impromptu after-school mom-and-daughter date. We leave the coffeehouse, our tongues greedily searching for and savoring minute traces of hot chocolate. On her small back, I place my hand as we walk to our car. Then, it occurs to me in a flash of meaning and insight: In this life, I hold in my hand something special. Something–a bit fragile.
Grace had three rare meltdowns at school within two days. Her teachers and I ascertained overheating was the cause for the two on Monday. Today, it was me. Less than a block from school, I begin to merge into the median when a woman with a hell bent look of determination on her face jumped line and zoomed into the dedicated left turn median and raced two blocks north to another turning lane. Shocked, I quickly steered out of her way and blew my horn and yelled at her in amazement: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Only, she couldn't hear me. But Grace did.
These were replay moments of so many times when she was so much younger–overheating and unable at all then to communicate "hot," like she can most times now. And, unable to discern that someone expressing anger is not directing it at her.
At the coffee house, I took in the culture of that unusual place. It's decidedly Christian. A non-profit where the proceeds beyond operations and employees go to help build wells and provide clean water to third world countries. The young people crowded there seemed mostly nonchalant to my daughter's oddities. She spotted someone she knew and lit up like Christmas. Our friend sees it. I see it. It is beautiful. Grace is happy.
She is a different one, my child. Almost as if coming into this world speaking another tongue, from another world. She is mine. She drives me wild sometimes. Mostly lately as she's grown up to the top of the adolescent cliff and teeters over the black hole of the ginormous service void. In that moment, that flash of recognition, my hand on the sweet curve of her back as we walked to the car, I get it this is no ordinary gift I have been bestowed. No ordinary child. Something precious. Not something lacking challenges. Something delicate. I must proceed boldly. Yet. With caution. Cradling in my hand and heart ever so gingerly this gift of a special life I have been given to nurture and guide through the maze-like obstacle course of our world.
