Episode 4: The New Season
We have a very small backyard, but about a quarter of an acre of woods that haven’t been much, other than a dumping ground for old furniture & the occasional construction material castoff. To relax, I like to go out there, clean up, cut briars and brush, and haul away dead wood. I don’t have much land, but I’m clearing out the rotten stuff.
With a running chainsaw & ear protection, I don’t hear much.
I didn’t notice Emma walking toward me. Her face, though, was beaming. I looked up, and I saw, THE BOY. Not just any boy. Not some kid. He was THE BOY. She’d been mentioning his name two or three times the number of mentions that her other friends got. He was special. He was tall. He was THE BOY.
When I finally looked up and noticed them coming toward me, I turned off the chainsaw and removed my ear protection. THE BOY seemed calm, especially after I turned off the chainsaw.
“Dad, this is THE BOY,” Emma said.
He reached out his hand as I peeled off my work gloves—we shook.
Eye contact.
Smile.
“Good to meet you.”
At this point, I gotta warn you: this story isn’t going where you think it is. I won’t be giving some speech about how I warned him to treat her right, or how I was going to be cleaning some pistol while they were gone, or anything like that. I’m not losing my girl. I’m not weeping bitter tears over her growing up. And I’m most certainly not pulling a Rapunzel’s mother and locking her away until a later date.
To be honest, I’m not sure where all that stuff came from—personally, I blame country music—but Emma really didn’t ask me for all that. She wanted me to act as normally as possible while she brings a special friend to meet me. Oh, I needed to be normal while I avoided accidentally threatening him with lawncare tools.
Each parent goes through seasons of life where the new challenge seems overwhelming & difficult. I knew Emma was going to grow through a new season or two as a freshman in high school. I just didn’t expect football season to be one of them.
