The Sprint
One Thursday a month, we can go to school and have lunch with Eli 7.7.I hadn't ever missed, but last Thursday, I had non-movable appointments scheduled before, during, and after lunchtime. I told Eli that I wasn't going to be able to come this time, and he was disappointed, but he understood. Gloria was going to be there (she's never missed, either), so he wasn't going to be alone.
As Thursday morning dragged on, though, I started trying to figure out a way that I could go. I showed up 15 minutes early to my 11:30 appointment, hoping that it would end early, and it did. That 15 minutes was all I needed to be able to make lunch, because I had about 15 minutes on the back end to get to my next appointment.
Eli's class normally has lunch outside on the days when parents come, and they sit on stone benches underneath this huge tree. I started walking up the sidewalk (about ten minutes after lunchtime had started), and when I got within about thirty yards of the lunch area, Eli saw me and shouted "DAD! DAD!" He started sprinting, and when he ran into me at about a hundred miles an hour, he threw his arms around me.
All the parents and kids are looking at us, and I'm thinking that I have to be one of the luckiest people in the world.
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