Holding Hands

The gravel crunched beneath our mud boots as he reached up to take hold of my hand.  His hand, ever growing, resting gently inside my clasp.  We took hold of one another for no reason other than being closer.

There’s something about holding hands with these little ones.  Holding hands in moments when holding hands is not necessary.  There are not streets to cross.  No parking lots to dart through.  No crowds to fight.  Holding hands then is a necessary evil.  A requirement which they buck against because “I’m a big kid now mommy.”  It’s clutching and tensely clinging.

Oh, but in these quiet moments.  Walking past the barn.  Closing in on the bayou.  Mud puddles frequently delaying our route.  No schedule.  No crowds.  No danger to guard against.

It’s in these moments when he CHOSE to reach up.  To take hold of my hand swinging loosely at my side as we wander down the path.  I darting the puddles and he jumping in with wild abandon.  Yet returning to take hold of my hand as we swing in time and approach the farmhouse.

His hand so different now.  I know it will be even more different in the years to come.  Those years ago when it was ever so small and he’d clutch my thumb as we fed and tiny fingers were smooth and soft.  No cuts or bitten nails or mudcrusted fingers.  The perfect little grasp still figuring out what lay beyond his reach.

Now, so confidently, he reaches up.  Takes hold of me.   Smiles blindly up in this moment with no rushing or requirements or chastisements.  A moment together after the rain.

This living in the moment is all anyone talks about now but the doing of it is far harder than the recommending.

But it’s in these mud-filled silent clutches that I understood a little bit more about God. How the reaching up to grab your parent’s hand is so much more fulfilling than the parent grabbing the child’s.  That the volunteering to walk hand in hand toward home makes the breath catch in your chest and the moment slows.  That hand reaching out to clasp yours fills the sky with unseen fireworks and makes a momma’s (or papa’s) heart explode.