Pete, yesterday I came across a picture that reminds me how fortunate I was to be a mother who was given a second chance. In the photograph, you sit on your beloved “cycle” and you wear the little red hard-hat (from a toy tool set) that served you just fine as a motorcycle helmet!
It was two days before your second birthday, we were outside and you were riding your cycle on the sidewalk and driveway. Our house was situated on a safe little cul-de-sac and I didn’t think twice about leaving you long enough to go into the house for something to eat. Your sister Erin would be born exactly six months later, and I had learned from experience that I could avoid feeling queasy if I kept my blood sugar levels even enough. Half a peanut butter sandwich was all I needed.
Minutes later I went back outside, but you were nowhere to be found! Quickly, I checked the two yards to either side of ours, but I didn’t see you. Panic gripped me as I ran toward the entrance of our subdivision. Before spending more precious time looking for you in safer places, I had to rule out the greatest danger: Highway 52! It was a divided 4-lane highway with a 55mph speed limit and drivers who would not be expecting to share the road with a small boy!
Peter, by the time I knew how nearly I came to losing you, you were SAFE. What a gift! A kind and quick-thinking man saw a little boy alongside a road where he shouldn’t be and stopped to keep you safe. (I doubt that he was thinking as kindly toward me.) I read the nameplate on his Navy uniform, but even while I thanked him profusely I was already in the process of falling to pieces. I never remembered his name.
I cried as I carried you home. I took you to the room which you shared with Marianne and rocked you to sleep as I continued to cry. I’m sure you were too stunned by my reaction to argue against a nap. In my mind, I could see the headline I would NOT be reading in the morning paper (LITTLE BOY WOULD HAVE BEEN TWO TOMORROW…) and offered to God my earnest prayer of gratitude.
Yesterday, Pete, when I found this picture of you… happy as can be on that “cycle” of yours… I noticed something for the first time. Is this coincidence that the number on your cycle… 41… is the same as the number on the CH53-E Black Stallion you were flying July 16, 2003?
(in photo section: Dreaming of a Bigger Motorcycle)
