Gone With The Wind

The first year Scarlett ran in the Red Ribbon Run she wasn’t exactly dressed for racing success.  Having somehow avoided this event with my older children—a competition in which kids from all the schools in our city race according to grade level—it didn’t occur to me that maybe she shouldn’t wear jeans, hand-me-down sneakers two sizes too small, or the adult-size race T-shirt they’d given her (child sizes were reserved for children with parents smart enough to preregister.)  Sure, seeing Scarlett and her fellow kindergarteners race was going to be cute, but to be honest, I just wanted to get it over with so I could go hit some yard sales.  I didn’t give her any running tips, didn’t bother with a pep talk.  As she walked toward the starting line with the other five year olds, I yawned and checked my phone for messages.

The Red Ribbon Run at that time was held in a stadium.  Beginning with a sprint across the field, the runners would follow their guides out the exit, and not be seen again until the final stretch toward the finish line inside the arena.  I lost sight of Scarlett  before the starting gun sounded.  As that sea of kindergarten cuteness raced to the exit, I tried to find her--the runner in jeans--but couldn’t.  I was too far away and they were, though moving, a jumble.  

And so they left the stadium and I chatted with a few parents sitting nearby, until it occurred to me that I should probably check to see if any kids were coming toward the finish line, and that’s when I saw that Scarlett had already crossed it.  Huh?  Had she missed the exit and never left the arena? No, she’d left the arena, she’d run the race, and finished in third place.  Wearing jeans, Scarlett had won her first trophy!

Scarlett liked winning that trophy and announced that the next year she was going to win another one.  I panicked.  Should I warn her that we don’t always get to win in life? Tell her that sometimes other people are faster and get the trophy, which is okay, because the important thing is participating?  I didn’t want her to doubt herself, but I didn’t want her to think she had another trophy in the bag.  Not sure what to do, I did nothing, and Scarlett came in second.

The second place trophy was bigger than the third place trophy, which Scarlett preferred, and so she told us she planned to win first place the next year.  I told myself I couldn’t do it—watch my daughter race and possibly come up empty handed, especially when she was so convinced first place was hers for the taking.  It was too much stress for a person with my delicate constitution.  Okay, my constitution wasn’t particularly delicate.  Still, I had been the one biting my nails at the last race; it was time for Rich to take over.  And so Rich attended his first Red Ribbon Run and saw Scarlett win second place again, while I, too scared to look, heard about it on the phone.

I knew it was the cowardly approach—using our four-year old as a reason to stay away, but as the next Red Ribbon Run drew near, that was my game plan.  Rich would go, and I’d stay home with Peter who would have ended up bored or lost if we’d taken him.  And I probably would have kept to that plan if I hadn’t run (literally) into Bob.  Out for my morning run, Bob, asked me as I ran by if I was planning on being in the race that weekend.  Since he didn’t have a serial killer vibe, I stopped, told him that I wasn’t, but that my kids would be running the next week in the Red Ribbon Run.

Bob explained that as a member of the local running club he would be at the Red Ribbon Run helping out.  “So I’ll see you there,” he said.

“Maybe,” I said sheepishly.

Bob cocked an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t you be there?”

And so I told him.  I told him about how she’d gotten a trophy every year, and that I was so worried about her coming in fourth or fifth or sixth that I dreaded the race.

“Disappointment,” he said with a wave of his hand, “she’ll face it at some point in life, but you should be there.”

Ugh.  I hate it when random strangers are right. 

Saturday, I went to race and watched Scarlett win third place.  She was happy, a little miffed that she’d been in first place right up until the last twenty five feet of the race, but still happy.  Later at the finish line I ran into Bob.  After reminding him of our previous conversation, I told him that Scarlett had won third place, and that I’d been here to see it.

He high-fived me.  “Now that’s the real victory,” he said.  "Her childhood will pass in a flash.”

Yes, it will, Bob, and I intend to see it, even the races.