After driving the six hours home from Philly last Sunday, I went over to the high school track … just to give my legs a stretch. 

My son got there a few minutes before me, fresh from running some errands. 

When we are at the track together, we run separately.

He’s much faster. Keeps track of his times and such. 

Me … I just go for the medicine of it. 

The track was empty when we arrived, but after a bit I spied a couple walking down the hill. From a distance I recognized a retired teacher from the middle school. I see her walking at the cemetery sometimes too, always with a spring in her step, a smile and a kind word.

All of which she possessed when she taught. Both of our kids had her for reading. 

Whenever I see Mrs. Labella my memory goes back to our son’s first year of middle school … when Karry and I signed up for parent teacher conferences. 

That was … what? A dozen years ago now? Thirteen?

I say this lovingly, but Peter was a bit of a handful back then … at least from our side of the equation. 

Whatever internal motor was responsible for his initiative … revved very low. 

Most of his homework got done with Karry’s foot in close proximity to his keister. 

His default with most things was to expend the least amount of effort required. He had dual gifts for pushing buttons and refusing to admit any wrongdoings. We often said he would make a great lawyer someday. 

He also exercised great agency over his energy and attention, which was often at odds with where the world wished he would direct them.

He was never in any great hurry.

His internal clock just kept time differently.

When we met his middle school teachers for the first time, we expected to come back with homework on what we could do better at home to help him succeed in class. 

I’m not sure, but I think Mrs. Labella was first. 

Peter wasn’t much of a reader then … or now. 

Didn’t inherit my English major genes, though he does have a genuine love for language. He just has always preferred working with his hands. Loves making and fixing things.

Reading and writing? Not so much. 

I remember Karry and I bracing for impact when we first walked into Mrs. Labella’s meticulously curated classroom. 

We were indeed stunned by what we heard. 

She said how wonderful it was having Peter in class. 

How well-behaved he was. 

How much she appreciated his participation.

We were like, “Um, our son?”

He didn’t even like to read.

We were kind of speechless. 

I don’t remember Mrs. Labella’s specific words, just that she saw a light in him … that we were too close to see for ourselves … and reflected it back to us.

I now know that those were the days when we — or at least I — spent way too much time squeezing the parenting handlebars way too tightly. 

As Mrs. Labella chatted with us, I remember appreciating being in the presence of a person who’d spent years in the company of 12- and 13-year-olds, who deeply understood the assignment, and who loved the important and sometimes hard thing she got to do … with exactly who she got to do it with. 

Someone who commanded respect, took no b.s. … and was comfortable enough in her own skin to give Grace where and when needed. 

In other words, someone who was born to be a teacher.

By contrast, I realized that Karry and I were as new to being parents of a middle schooler as Peter was being a middle schooler.

Maybe we were all doing a little better than we gave ourselves credit for, even if we were collectively a little fidgety in our respective chairs.  

The rest of his teachers pretty much said the same thing. 

Walking out of the school that night, Karry and I joked that maybe we had a budding actor on our hands. Had ‘em all fooled, he did.

We both knew that wasn’t at all true. 

The truer thing was that maybe we were in too much of a hurry with our expectations. 

That maybe our parenting motors were in need of revving a little slower.

___ 

So … fast forward … to last Sunday at the track. 

I waved to Mrs. Labella and her husband when I caught up to them. 

As I jogged by, she said she appreciated a piece I’d recently written. 

For the record, I’m not sure higher praise exists for a writer than to get a gold star from a middle school reading teacher. 

I told her it’s a blessing to have such good things to write about.

I ran on ahead a bit … then felt moved to double-back. 

“In the spirit of not assuming,” I said. “That’s my son over there,” pointing Peter out on the other side of the track. “If he didn’t say hello, make sure you say hi when he passes by.”

“I’ll trip him if he doesn’t,” she said … still not an ounce of b.s. in her voice. 

I was about three-quarters of the way through my next lap when, up ahead of me, I saw this.

My 25-year-old son and his middle school reading teacher. 

It filled my heart full to see that he broke from his pace to walk with them.

Turns out, his internal clock has always understood time just fine. 

They took a good full lap together.

I don’t know what they talked about. 

Only that they each had a smile and a kind word for the other. 

I imagine he told her what he’s doing now. 

I imagine that she told him she’s not surprised one bit. 

I found myself slowing my pace behind them … careful not to get in the way. 

Just grateful for the medicine of it … in no great hurry myself anymore.