High in the Sky

One small seed takes root deep inside and grows. Soft fuzzy hair. That baby smell. And although I'm still not sure when it happened, that seed has become a wiry little boy, long stick legs shooting upwards in yet another growth spurt.

Today, that growing seed wanted to climb a much older seed. Planted long ago, its lanky limbs reach skyward, not quite as high as the rooftops but still as majestic as an oak in its display of a full set of spring leaves.

Granddaddy has to help Wyatt reach the first limb of tree #1. Rough bark leaving raw, red scratches on tender skin, he climbs upward.

Unsteady at first, he straddles a lower branch. Then, he starts to move upwards, shoes hindering toes from closely grasping branches and feeling the sureness that can only come from a barefooted climb.

Ten, then fifteen feet in the air, he stops to see the world from his new perch and looks upward for another branch to take him higher.

Twenty yards away in the porch swing, my inner video player fast forwards through all sorts of scenarios--falling and breaking something, frantic driving to the ER, wearing a cast for months.

After ten minutes of biting my tongue, my mouth finally stops his ascent. "That's high enough Wyatt."

It's a command I have to repeat more than once as hands and feet almost unconsciously seek to defy the effects of gravity. Eventually, he asks for help getting down...so he can climb tree #2...and tree #3.

His daddy and I had hoped the 8 foot high mountain we purchased the children this past Christmas would be enough.

But the taller he grows, the higher he wants to climb.

That's something I understand.