Helping Hands

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

When Son #3 was about nine months old, I watched him fall down the stairs. He was in one of those old fashioned walkers—sort of a backless foldup camp chair with X-shaped legs hooked together by parallel bars which supported a denim seat hanging in the center. Our walker had big clear plastic wheels worn and scraped by years of use, plus a small tray to hold finger-sized munchies, and–top of the line at Kmart–it also included a set of brightly colored balls to entertain the baby.

I don’t know what distracted my attention that day, but I remember the horror I felt seeing the walker at the top of the stairs in our split entry house. We had a wrought iron railing between the living room and the 7 or 8 steps to the front door, so kids racing up and down from bedrooms to kitchen were always irritatingly noisy and clearly visible. Unlike a couple of his older siblings, Son #3 seemed to enjoy the view from his little chair. He’d chew on his fists and laugh as his siblings tickled him or watch in fascination while I vacuumed the carpet. Normally, we kept a dining room chair laid across the gap to the stairs, but not that day.

Racing across the room, I saw the walker teeter on the edge of the first step and then begin to dip. Its front wheels spun wildly in empty air as the back wheels rolled inexorably downward. I think I must have screamed; I reached out frantically when my baby dropped, but it was too late. From the top of the stairs, I watched in what felt like slow-motion as the walker began its plunge.

But miracle of miracles, the little chair went down those stairs as if invisible hands were keeping it level. With perfect balance, it bounced from step to step, never tilting, the front wheels dangling in the air above each drop. Son #3 landed when he recoiled against the front door, settling safely, right side up, on the landing. He was still chewing cheerfully on his fist.

I knew enough about physics to know that what had just happened was impossible. The weight of my small son wasn’t nearly enough to counter-balance the fall of his walker. Sobbing with relief, I lifted him out of the chair. I couldn’t explain his safety, and I didn’t try. I just was grateful.

Later when Son #3 entered 1^st grade, he was elected by his class to be their representative to the elementary school student council. Every Friday morning, I faithfully sent him down the hill to school a ½ hour before my other children so he could attend the council meeting. I was confused that fall during Parent Teacher Conferences, when his teacher asked me why Son #3 had never shown up to Student Council. Not once. “What?” I said.

Later that day, I asked Son #3 why he wasn’t fulfilling his responsibility to his class. “Mom,” he said, tears springing to his eyes, “the Safety Patrol kid (a sixth grader) said I was too early for school, and he wouldn’t ever let me in the building. He made me sit on the steps till the bell rang.” My heart broke for him. We had a gentle conversation about how to resolve his situation with the student guard. It took a good deal of courage, but he stood his ground on the next Friday and every Friday after that.

Things didn’t get easier for him. In second or third grade, one of his friends confided in me that a group of older kids was bullying Son #3 everyday on his way home from school. They taunted him, pushed him off the sidewalk, and made him cry. He hadn’t wanted to worry me, so he said nothing. But Son #1, a lofty 7^th grader, over-heard the conversation and said, “I can fix that.”

Fortunately, the middle school got out almost an hour earlier than the elementary. The next day Son #1 stationed himself outside the school when the closing bell rang. He stayed out of sight until Son #3 passed him, then he followed some distance behind. Sure enough, the bullies started in as soon as they were out of range of the crossing guards. Son #1, even then tall for his age, stepped in front of them and pointed to his younger sibling. “This is my brother,” he said. “If I ever hear of either of you causing him grief, I will pick you up and drop you on your heads. Do you understand?” The bullies, cowed by the threat, never bothered Son #3 again.

In spite of those difficult years, by the end of middle school Son had #3 developed an exceptional self-confidence which has since led him to accomplish a long string of successes.  Perhaps ten or twelve years ago, not long after he finished medical school and was about to marry, I asked him how he had changed the dynamic of his life so dramatically.

“Well,” he said. “Around 8^th grade, I decided I wanted to be in charge of my Life, not my Life to be in charge of me. I set that as a goal, and I just keep at it.”

Raising children in today’s world can be frightening. Every care-giver who shelters a child learns that there is no way to protect those we love from the innumerable troubles that are bound to come their way. But it is also true that we are not alone. Hands both seen and unseen willingly join us to steady their path as we watch over our children–until they are wise enough and strong enough to walk by themselves.