Innocence Lost

One of my best friend’s son’s goes to the same school as my son. We met up at the WalMart last week and were talking about various things, and she asked if I had heard about the latest happenings at the school. I told her what I thought she was talking about, and she looked at me with that look that says she knows something else, something that is going to blow steam out of my ears, something that is going to set my blood pressure higher. We are in the cleaning aisle, between the sponges and the Febreeze, and she leans in and whispers:

You know they caught three different sets of kids having sex in the school, right?

Those words cut through me like a knife. My first reaction was to look around for my son. Where was he? Because I needed to look into his eyes to see if I can still see the innocence there. I need to believe that he is still my baby.

My friend goes on and tells me the whole story. Two pairs were caught in the hallway and one pair in the bathroom…and then she told me that during a film in one of her son’s classes, two kids were in the back of the class masturbating each other. I feel my knees weaken, my breathing is becoming labored, and I’m looking around still for my son. He is roaming around WalMart, and I don’t see him. I’m almost in panic mode.

I respond to my friend with the typical shock and disbelief. I ask if anything is being done and she tells me that she doesn’t know. I ask how this could happen with a school full of teachers and administrators and security; she says she doesn’t know. I begin to wonder when school became a playground of fornication. My friend moves on to a different topic, and I try to follow the conversation, but my mind stays stuck on this topic. How? Why? Where is that boy?!

My friend can talk your ear off, so she is going a mile a minute as my attention turns to other things. Finally she says she has to go and I see my son coming toward me. I look at him and I still see that brand new baby that I stared at for so long after he was born so I could take in every thing about him. I remember looking at him, fresh from inside my body, and thinking that he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life, even with his funny egg shaped head and scrunched up face. I remember thinking how big his hands and feet were, and how he was going to be tall like his daddy, but thick like his mom. I look at my son and I see that little boy who has that infectious laugh and makes the world around him brighter. I see those bright eyes that smile even when he’s not, and those huge dimples in his cheeks that make you want to put your fingers in them.

My son walks up and puts his arms around me. I look into those big brown eyes and exhale. I can still see it, that innocence. It may be leaving soon, and I want to make sure that I catch every second of it while it is still around.

Peace and blessings…