I Saw Jason Today

"That's my boy!" I yelled. "Oh my goodness!  That's Jason!" He was by himself outside the Racetrac gas station in Clayton, Georgia.  Tom, Maggie Mae, and I had gone to Clayton to eat at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Ishy's, and were heading back to Franklin when Tom noticed the gas warning light.

Tom was pumping gas and Maggie Mae was asleep on the center console, but as soon as I started yelling and pointing to Jason, she was on my lap with her head out the window.  "What? Where? Did someone say 'squirrel'?"  
I recognized him immediately.  What caught my attention was this blonde-haired little man trying to open the door to leave the gas station.  He was pushing and pushing when a bigger man came along and helped him out.  Jason looked up and gave the man a big smile, and that's when I noticed the missing front teeth.  Oh, my goodness!  That's Jason!  That's my boy.

He was wearing a yellow T-shirt, Wrangler jeans, and muddy white tennis shoes.  His hair was all tousled like he hadn't combed it in a week, and his face was smeared with something he'd just eaten.  I wanted to jump out of the truck and run to him and plant kisses all over his filthy face and hug his breath away, but instead I just sat motionless and looked back in time twenty-six years as my five-year-old Jason climbed up into the back seat of a Ford F350 Diesel truck and buckled himself in.

As the truck with my beautiful little boy was backing out of its parking spot, I saw my son again.  This time thirty-one year-old Jason was sitting in the driver's seat with five-year-old Jason sitting right behind him.  That's right!  I saw Jason twice today.  

Yep!  I'm crying.

(Written Sunday, March 17)