A Little Giant Step

There are so many first times when you're raising your children.  Some touch your heart in the most profound way.  There's the first smile, the first giggle, their first taste of peas, and ice cream.  Then there's this one...one that I can remember like it was yesterday.  My little Heidi was as precious a little girl as you could possibly imagine.  Pale skin, with a little button nose, rosy cheeks, and blond streaked hair that reached past her bum.  A loving snuggle bug with eyes bluer than the sky.  "Mama!  Mama!", she would call to me upstairs.  "Yes, Heidi?"  "Can I please cross the street to play?  I can do it by myself?  I will look both ways!"  Wow!  I wonder how many times I said "Look both ways before you cross!", in my lifetime...?  "O.K. Honey", I had said, "But be careful!"  She wouldn't know I was watching her, peaking through the curtains of my upstairs bedroom window.  She approached the street, hands on hips, standing tall at attention like the big girl she was.  She looked cautiously, first to the left, then the right, before proceeding to march quickly to the neighbors side of the street.  I would write this only moments afterward...

A Little Giant Step

I watched my daughter cross the street,

her long blond hair a sway...

She glances quickly up the hill,

and then the other way.

Momentous the occasion,

 for the both of us today...

As it's the first time on her own,

she's crossed the street to play!

I wouldn't know until that moment how much this milestone would effect me.  I grabbed a piece of paper and sat on my bed to write this.  The tears would swell in my eyes, and fall so uncontrollably down my cheeks, I would hardly be able to see the paper.