Dad On Duty #55

They pass not around us, not by us.

They pass *through* us.

****

I’m driving to a work meeting (yes I technically have a job. Not much of one, admittedly).

For no apparent reason, I think about him. One of our scholars with whom I’ve been working a lot, who has recently moved out of our school.

And right now I’m worried about him. Driving down the road at my other job.

Don’t they know he needs us, and we need him?

Don’t they know how good we are at that stuff? How can anyone else possibly help him as much as we can?

*******

I’m standing in the hallway at the school during Bobby the Bobcat time.   Hundreds of kids are swirling around me.

I can hear (but can’t see) Tori standing next to me chatting with her friends, reveling in her fame.

For a moment, I close my eyes (you can’t tell….Bobby looks just the same). My hands are outstretched into the sea of kids

In those few seconds, I feel a dozen high-fives and about six hugs.

And I feel them pass, not around me, but through me.

******

They pass through us, taking a little piece of our heart and soul when they do. But leaving a little piece of themselves in us too.

It’s not just our own kids. It’s every kid we’ve ever helped or connected to, or even talked with.

Passing through your self, your being, they trade a little bit of you for a little bit of them. And yet on the whole, they leave more than they take. We come out ahead.

That because it’s not just a bit of themselves they leave in us.

They also leave a tiny slice…like the smallest diamond….of God Himself as they go.

They pass through us.

And we are made more whole.