The Chase

I started running when I was around 14 years old. Back then we used the good ole car odometer to mark our routes, and I’d choose my route depending on the mileage I wanted to run that day. Sometimes I ran with my mom, but I often ran by myself too. I’d come home from school, have a snack, lace up, and head out. It was a great way to process my teenage thoughts and emotions, move around after sitting in class all day, dream, pray, imagine… my mind was as free as my feet, and I found great joy in those solo runs.

On one particular day, I headed out for 4 or 5 miles, following the usual route to the mailbox at the turnaround point and heading straight back.

I was running along, enjoying myself as usual, when I saw two boys riding skateboards. I vaguely recognized them from my elementary school days, but we attended different middle schools, and I hadn’t seen them in years. We will call them J and B. I can’t remember exactly how it started, but when they saw me they gave chase. And because I was being chased, I ran from them.

Looking back, I’m not sure why I ran. They probably would have given up if I’d stopped. But for some reason I ran harder and harder, trying to get away from them. They were taunting me and shouting at me, and it made me nervous, but I don’t think they would have hurt me. I vaguely remember wondering how long I could run like that because I was still a good mile or two from home.

Finally I came to the last intersection before I’d be back in my neighborhood, and I shot across that street hoping the skateboards wouldn’t be able to follow me in the traffic.

That’s when I saw her. The most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. Sitting in her car at the intersection.

My mom.

Now, if you were a student of A. Crawford Mosley High School and had her for a guidance counselor...or really if you knew her at all, you would’ve known not to mess with Erin McGuire. She was a no-nonsense, no excuses, do-what-you-are-supposed-to-do, intimidating force of nature. Because of this she helped countless students and families, but it also meant you didn’t want to cross her.

It meant you certainly didn’t want to get caught chasing her baby down the street on your skateboard.

She saw me fly across the street with a look of fear in my eyes. She rolled down her window as I pointed behind me, trying to catch my breath and tell her what was happening.

J and B must have seen this from across the street, because they quickly turned their skateboards around and sped back the way they’d come…

And she followed.

Meanwhile, I ran home, collapsing gratefully in my front yard, and I’m pretty sure I chuckled a little. I had no idea what she’d do, but I’d been her daughter long enough to know it would be good.

When Mom got home from wherever she’d been going when she saw me at that intersection, she gave me the details. She’d chased them in her car all the way back to their houses. When they finally reached their yards, tired and out of breath from trying to out-skate her, she pulled up beside them and said, “Now you know how it feels to be chased like that. Don’t you EVER chase my daughter again.”

They said, “Yes Ma’am” between heaving breaths. And that was that.

I continued to run those routes fearlessly, just as I had before the chase. I knew it was unlikely they would bother me again, and I was right. They never did.