By David Crow
Conversations
David Crow
I walked over and put my hand on the red Ford Fusion sitting in my driveway. New tires, new brakes, a fresh oil change and a full tank of gas. All set. Just a few more minutes.
My son Joshua came down from his room carrying the last box of stuff. I stole a sideways glance at him. Brown hair and blue eyes. Just like always, except now he’s taller.
It didn’t seem that long ago when I brought him, his brother and his sister here to Orange. They had clapped and cheered and danced around as I carried their mother over the threshold of our new home. I felt joy that day. I’d done my best to set up my family for a start in life and it was bearing fruit. My kids would grow up in a stable community with every advantage I could provide them. Now it was just a matter of maintaining that stability and applying the lessons he and his siblings would need to get by in life. There was time.
He was always the first of my children to break the new ground. He went from Turkey Hill School to Amity Middle School Orange to Amity High School. Along the way there were baseball and soccer and field trips. There were pets and things to decorate his room. There were dances and recitals. There were bicycles and cars. There were fishing and hunting trips and beach trips and vacations. There were friends and girlfriends. There was time.
As that time went by there were defeats and heartbreaks. There were failures. There were disappointments. There were hard lessons to be learned, like when Socks the cat died and he cried himself to sleep. There was time.
As that time went by there were victories and celebrations. There were successes. There were achievements. There were triumphs to revel in, like when he got into college. There was time.
Then he went off to college. Sure, it left an empty space at the dinner table for a while. But he was always coming back in a few weeks to fill it. There was still time.
Then came today. As he was hugging his mother goodbye and telling her not to be sad I realized that the time was up. I’d done all I could for him, right down to the new tires and brakes and gas and oil. I gave him a fist full of money. I hugged him and told him that I loved him and to have as much fun as possible.
Then he fired up the engine of that red Ford Fusion and drove up the street I had brought him down for the first time not too long ago.
It was different this time.
This time the seat at the dinner table will stay empty. That’s as it should be. I’m so happy for him as he makes his start. I do hope that every so often he’ll come back and sit in that seat for a little while so I can remember him just as he was when I first met him in the hospital the day he was born. I wish I’d known then just how fast the time would go.
I hope I’ve served him well. I just wish there was more time.