Meander

It happened when Jeanine and I were out trying to spot those pesky, elusive whales from Logans beach in Warrnambool. We haven’t had a lot of luck in spotting these magnificent creatures; in fact we have never spotted any at all.

As we were leaving something happened that was as significant as a whale breaching. We were about to step into the car park and a toddler made to run past us into the car park. His mother cried out with understandable gusto. “Billy! No further!”

Billy did as he was told and halted at the edge of the car park although he did turn and face his mum with a cheeky grin, knowing that he had drawn the desired response from her.

It wasn’t until much later that I thought about this little encounter. I was on a stretch of open road with not another car in sight. It was a pleasant sunny day and the horses under the hood were champing at the bit. The temptation…But fortunately I thought about Mum's words. ‘No further’. There was a very good reason for the words that she wailed and the passion in her voice. Her words were exhaled in order to protect her son. Billy of course had no idea of the inherent dangers of rushing out to flirt with motor vehicles. How could he have any understanding at such a tender age? And it's easy to say it's ‘a baby lesson,' but it is a lesson for all of us every time we think we might chance a law that we don’t understand or believe that it doesn’t apply to us. I thought about that Mum as I set the cruise control. Ultimately she was not just protecting drivers from unspeakable trauma, but she spoke out of love for her son.