Kindergarten pickup

The parents line-up by a chain link fence behind a big, flowering bush.

The teacher lets us into the school one by one or in pairs. When it’s my turn I step into the hallway and can see into the classroom. All the children are sitting in front of their cubbies, knapsacks on their backs, waiting to be picked up. Oh, they’re perfect. They truly are. Let them always remember this perfection that lives in their core.

And there’s Jones, talking with his friends. And when he looks up and sees me it is like something inside of him is switched on. The smile begins in his eyes and moves throughout his body like a current of light. He shouts, “Daddy!” and runs toward me. His uncalculated joy a living thing. He throws his little body into mine. And this is the moment I did not know I had been waiting for my entire life. It hits me like lightning, like religion.

We head home, stopping to get an ice cream cone. Cabbage white butterflies, reflecting sunlight off their wings, appear like sparks around us before vanishing into foliage, and Jones’ tiny hand reaching up for the ice cream cone. Everything so beautiful.

This golden stretch of day.

This privilege of blue skies.