A bridge can still be built, while the bitter waters are flowing beneath.
~Anthony Liccione
The porch door creaked its welcome and then slammed with a thud. “Home, Mom!” my teenage son called. A moment later, he stood beside me in the kitchen, blond hair tousled, cheeks flushed, and blue eyes shining.
I smiled. “How was your day, Grant?” I wanted to hug him, but I knew better. These teen years had brought turbulence. My son had transitioned from home teaching to public school, and suddenly we stood on opposite sides of a gaping chasm. Grant was my second-born son, so I understood that as he stretched to grow, I needed to open my hand. But this was different. Grant was often distant.
“School was good. Track was great.” The fridge door opened, and the top half of Grant disappeared behind the door. I chopped veggies and wondered what made this a sharing day. Usually, Grant would come in, nod, drop his backpack, and quietly make his way up the old, curved stairs to his bedroom.
“I’m glad,” I said. “What made track great?”
Now the fridge door slammed. “I just love to run,” he said, taking a huge bite of apple. “We have an at-home log. We need to run outside of practice. I’m starting in the morning.”
“Wonderful,” I said. I chopped. Grant chomped.
“Well, I’m going to do homework,” my son said. He grabbed his backpack and headed out of the kitchen. But when he got to the dining room, he stopped and turned. “Mom, want to run with me? It’d be good to have a partner.”
I looked up. “Oh. Well, I haven’t run in years,” I said. Grant had three younger brothers, one just tiny. I wasn’t in great shape, and I didn’t know where to find my shoes. But my son had just asked me to share time. He invited me into his world. I’d been praying for this opportunity.
“I’d love to,” I said.
“Cool,” Grant said. And he was gone. Thump, thump, thump up the stairs.
And now my smile came straight from the soul.
As a little boy, Grant had been exuberant. He loved life and approached everything with wild curiosity and boundless energy. I spent most of my life chasing him. But the joy! One minute, we’d be pirates in the playhouse; the next, we’d fly down the hill on bikes. He’d throw his head back and laugh, and that laughter could soothe the sore out of anything life could throw. He knew how to test me, often putting his toe on the line of my limits. But at the end of the day, we were on the same side.
Lately, though, same-sidedness was rare. We argued about music. Movies. The holes in his jeans. We didn’t let him have as many freedoms as his new friends had, and the friction was fierce.
But maybe running…
Maybe running would fix things. Return things to the way they were.
The next morning, Grant and I began. I crept out to the patio to avoid waking my husband and other children. I tried not to grimace as we stretched. I tried not to appear too eager as we closed the gate and took to the road.
“Ready?” Grant asked.
“Ready,” I said.
Grant and I kept an even pace as we left our drive and headed toward the river. Our shoes tapped the pavement with cadence. We followed the bike path that paralleled the Mississippi, but when we reached the footbridge over the ravine, Grant moved ahead. His stride opened, and soon I was looking at the back of his yellow T-shirt. I tried to move faster, but my lungs ached. My heart beat fast.
I couldn’t match his pace.
“Sorry, Mom,” he breathed as he looked back. “Gotta move ahead.” And off he went.
Catching up was useless. Soon, Grant was a small figure in the distance.
So much for togetherness.
Running fell right in line with everything else about our relationship — me trying my best, but my son still moving away.
That night, under the safety of darkness, I made a confession to my husband, Lonny. “This running thing. It’s not going to work. Grant will always be faster. The distance seems significant.”
“It was the first day,” Lonny said.
“Every day will be the same.”
“You won’t know unless you try.”
So the next morning, I tried again. And the next. And the next. It wasn’t easy to add a morning run to my schedule, but those first strides together kept me going. There were physical benefits. My muscles got stronger. My side stopped aching. I could run farther. I became more fit. But the healing. The fixing. That still seemed far off. Grant and I still disagreed about movies, activities and friends. The few minutes of morning togetherness hadn’t solved that.
I wondered if anything ever would.
One morning, when I woke and pushed back the curtains, the sky was gray, not the warm pink-orange we’d found most of our mornings. Surely, we’d take the day off from running. I crawled back into bed and let Lonny’s arms settle around me. I’d just drifted off when I heard a voice at the door.
“Mom? Mom? You ready? Time to go.”
Grant? I sat up and looked toward the door. Sure enough.
“It’s going to rain,” I said.
“It’s okay, Mom. My phone says later. Want to go?”
“Give me 10 minutes?”
Soon, we were heading down the familiar road. I kept Grant’s pace for a longer time now. We ran along the river, but when we hit the first dock, Grant moved ahead.
“Grant, look at the sky. It’s going to rain. We should go home.”
“Just a little more,” he breathed.
I looked up. The sky was darker. A half-second later, slow, fat drops began to fall. Then, in an instant, the sky opened wide, and rain fell in a wild rush.
Grant was by my side.
“Guess the rain came sooner,” he said.
I nodded, and the two of us bolted. Drops pelted from the sky and drenched our clothes. Our arms and legs pumped. When we reached the footbridge, we stopped to catch our breath under the canopy of trees. Underneath, water charged through the ravine. I bent forward, hands on knees, and gulped air. Through the cracks in the bridge, I watched the mini-river roar. And in that moment, I understood.
Running was like this bridge.
Coming together on these mornings, running together even if we weren’t side by side, connected Grant and me. It brought us together. Closed our chasm. Linked his life to mine in a way that was positive, strong and good.
Bridges span differences.
And running bridged ours.
I would’ve stayed in that moment forever, even in the downpour, but Grant reached over and tugged on my arm. “Mom, I keep telling you, you gotta move faster!” He laughed, and his beautiful face was bright even in the rain.
“Let’s go!” we said in unison.
Then my son and I ran toward home.
— Shawnelle Eliasen —