The View From Behind
Today my son outran me. To be honest, that is no great feat. Over twenty years ago, when I was on the high school wrestling team, I and a guy we called "Panda" were the slowest guys on the squad. You would think that a guy with that kind of history would find losing a foot-race to be insignificant at this time in life, but it wasn't.
In my forty-first and his fourteenth year my son outran me. Oh, I always knew it would happen, and besides I'm still not the slowest in the family. If I stay healthy, I'll be able to outrun my older boy for a long time. In fact he's not even interested in running far enough to see if he can outrun me. He seldom runs at all unless someone's chasing him or he's chasing a ball. But the younger guy has the lean, leggy, loose-jointed look of a distance runner. We've run together a number of times. I can remember days when I waited on him, and other times when I wore ankle weights as a handicap. My mind told me, "He is on his way up and I'm on my way down." Still, it just didn't seem right to finish our three mile run seventy-five yards or so behind him. I knew it was coming, but it wasn't supposed to happen this way.
I guess I'm a closet romantic. I had imagined a long process: the time in which I could generally outrun him would gradually become the time in which we were evenly matched and that would shade into the time in which he could generally outrun me. I imagined this process stretching over a couple of years of good natured rivalry. My "process" was compressed to one morning--a little more than twenty minutes.
Like I said, I knew it would happen. I'm getting older and stiffer and slower. He's getting older and stronger and faster. This morning about a mile and a half out, his growing strength surpassed my aging strength and, I am reminded, life will never be the same again.
I was judging everything by the slow, comfortable, plodding decline that I see taking place in my body. I had forgotten the explosion of change that takes place in the young. I guess, especially since it was my youngest child, I was forced to realize that never again could I simply assume the mastery of these two lives that I had helped to bring into the world.
My youngest son outran me today. He and his older brother will do a lot of that. Already there is so much in their world that I can't quite reach. When I finished the race this morning I was just a short way back. Soon both my sons will be running off out of sight accomplishing what I never will.
I would be lying to you if I said it didn't matter. It does. I write with a strange, proud sadness. It is a feeling that those who have not been parents will have trouble grasping. It is the passing of an era, but it is a good passing. I'm nursing a sore thigh, but I've been training some any how, and I'll be increasing my milage when my leg feels better. I plan to outrun him again, but it will never be the same. It can't be. It shouldn't be.
My son outran me today.
Run, son. Run far and fast and straight. Run with purpose. Run when your legs ache and you think you can't go any more. Run when your comrades have given up. Run because God has placed in your heart something worth running for. Run, because even though I can't keep up I'll be with you.
Son, now that you can outrun me, remember how I used to wait on you. I'd love to run with you every once in a while, but look out, because on one of those days when you just don't feel right and I feel great I'll get you.
Postscript (March 1999):
I will enter my 49th year this month. After the day I describe in this story I never did outrun my son again. I don't feel bad about that, because there were lots of others who didn't either. Chris went on to set his school record for the mile and two-mile. He was single A state champ in the two-mile his senior year. He presently runs for Cedarville College. He is nursing a bad foot but plans to compete in track this spring.
He has done well, running and in other ways as well. He will graduate this year, after only three years. He is getting married in August. He plans to pursue a career in Youth ministry.
Though, I can't run with him any more, we do enjoy occasional bike rides together.
I enjoy watching him run!
Happy 21st Birthday Son.
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