no more scooter pie

This is the mancub preparing to go to school on his scooter one cool morning, with helmet, gloves, and messenger bag. I called him Scooter Pie. He was all over town on that thing all summer and fall. But yesterday, on Halloween, he passed the license exam and is now a licensed driver. He asked to drive to work yesterday evening, and while I was feeling hesitant, I decided it was now or never, and so I let him go off on his own to his job at the hardware store. I stood in the driveway, watching him drive off and waving like a goon, with a mixture of pride and nervousness. I suddenly remembered when he was four, and I was teaching him to ride a two-wheeled bike. We were in the driveway practicing, as we had done for many days. He was a determined little kid. And in the split second I was looking somewhere else, he caught his balance on the bike and just kept peddling, right down the driveway, right into the street, and just kept going. I looked up, surprised, and ran after him. He had this look on his face, peddling as hard as his little legs could take him, of total freedom. He was moving under his own steam, without me. He had that same sort of look yesterday.

No more tiny bikes. No more scooter pie. All the training wheels are off. The kid is driving off on his own, and I can just stand slack-jawed and wonder where the years have gone. He arrived home safely a little after nine, and I thought how maybe, in another eleven hundred safe homecomings, I can start breathing again.