Ducks in a Row

I was in a hurry to pick up kids at school when the cars ahead of me stopped in the middle of the road.  My immediate response was irritation.  What in the world.  There wasn’t anyone trying to cross.  No stop signs.  I looked around.  Come on.

A second or two later, I saw her.  A mama duck, proudly and cautiously leading her troops across a busy road. There were six little ones following obediently behind their mama.  She stepped out first, warily watching for any threat to her children.

It’s a busy street.  And with school getting out, it was a busy time of day with lots of traffic.  As the ducks got to the middle line, I held my breath, hoping that the cars coming fast on the other side of the yellow line would see the procession in time and would stop.

The mama duck waited cautiously for a second, and then stepped out into the oncoming lane of traffic as those cars now slowed down and stopped, as well.  I exhaled.

As soon as she reached the other side she hopped around to watch as the littles all finished the journey in safety.  It didn’t seem like any of the littles had any idea how perilous their journey was.  But their mama did.

It was actually a nice little break in the pace of my day.  A forced respite from my schedule. And in that moment of respite I got to thinking.

One of our kids has been struggling lately.  She has a language processing delay and it often takes her just a few seconds longer than everyone else to understand what’s being said, and to respond. She’s on a team right now where the coach will give multi-step directions for drills.  If she has to stop to see what everyone else is doing next, so she’ll know what the next step is, the coach will make everyone stop the drill and will then humiliate her by making everyone on the team start over from the beginning because “someone stopped.”

It’s not that she can’t do the drills.  It’s that she can’t hold all the verbal instructions in her head long enough without losing her place.  She can do it.  She just needs to stop the traffic every now and then so she has enough time.

Another one of our kids has a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.  So far, he’s doing remarkably well learning at a normal pace.  Reading was exceptionally hard for him, but he’s starting to get it.  He forgets things a lot.  Things that he does every single day.  But all the sudden one day he’ll forget and need to be reminded. It’s not that he can’t do it. It’s that he needs the traffic to stop for him every so often so he can make it across the road safely.

Another one of the kids in our home has had a tremendous amount of trauma in his childhood.  He witnessed a violent murder, and grew up in a village full of domestic violence and substance abuse.  He struggles to maintain control of his emotions, and sometimes he just has to take off and go walk in the woods alone for a while to re-regulate.  He’ll blow up, and swear at teachers.  He’ll storm out of school unexcused.  He’s always repentant afterwards, after he’s gotten his emotions settled back down.  He’s about 5 or 6 years old, trapped in a 14-y-o’s body.  It’s not that he can’t handle the stresses of school, or all the busy social interactions of a teenager.  It’s that sometimes he needs the traffic to stop so he can cross the road without getting run over.

As I pulled into the school parking lot to pick up our kids, my mind was still focused on the traffic stopping to let the little ducks cross the road, and how well each of those little ducklings did following in line, doing exactly what they were supposed to do.  It wasn’t that they weren’t able to cross the road.  It’s that they needed a little more time.  And the traffic stopped.

The traffic on the busy road stopped for them.

That’s really the wondrous part of the whole thing.  It wasn’t the ducks at all.  It was the traffic.   It was the individual drivers who realized what was happening, and stopped to allow the little ducks time to safely cross the road.

So I think this will be my prayer from now on.  For each one of our little ducks as they go through their lives.  I will pray that traffic will stop for them. When they just need a little more time to safely cross the road.