The View from Up There

He has no idea how high up he is.

Strapped into a shoulder carrier with a seatbelt around his belly and ankle loops cinched tight, my son rides above the world without a single ounce of fear. He doesn’t know about gravity. Doesn’t know that one wrong step could send both of us crashing down. He doesn’t know how fragile balance can be when you’re six feet up with no control over where your body’s headed next.

He just knows I put him there. So it must be safe.

We were walking down a quiet road on a warm afternoon, headed to get ice cream. My wife beside me. The leash to our dog in one hand. Judah balanced on my shoulders in a new carrier I was testing out for camp. No deep meaning intended. No moral lesson brewing. Just a simple family walk.

But then he reached forward, grabbed my face, and yanked my glasses clean off like it was the most natural thing in the world. A few minutes later, once we had our cones, he started reaching down, trying to swipe the spoon right out of my hand. Wobbling, grinning, swinging his arms freely in every direction. No fear. No hesitation.

He wasn’t holding on. Wasn’t bracing himself. Wasn’t second-guessing anything. Because he trusts me.

He trusts the straps. Trusts the carrier. Trusts the legs he’s sitting on and the heart that put him there. It’s not even something he has to think about. It’s just there. Built in. That unspoken belief that Dad has him. That he’s secure. That he’s seen.

And I wonder how long he’ll live like that.

How long until the world teaches him to double-check everything? Until he starts bracing for the fall before it comes? Until he figures out I’m not invincible? That these legs shake. That this heart gets tired. That sometimes even the strongest shoulders stumble?

Because one day I will let him down. Not by choice, but because I’m human. I’ll lose my temper. I’ll get distracted when I should have been paying attention. I’ll say something careless. I’ll raise my voice when I should have listened. I’ll wound him, unintentionally, and he’ll realize I’m not the perfect man he thought carried him.

And yet right now, he rides high.

Right now, the view from my shoulders still feels like the safest place on earth. And I don’t want to waste these days. I don’t want to rush past the sweetness of being the one he trusts without question. The one he reaches for. The one he laughs with from six feet off the ground.

So I walk. One step after another.

Not because I’m always confident in my footing, but because I’m learning to lean into the One who carries me. The Father who has never stumbled. Never dropped me. Never failed to show up. If there’s any steadiness in me worth trusting, it’s only because He’s holding me together.

I pray I live up to the trust my son has placed in me during these early years. Not just with strong legs and steady hands, but with a heart that holds fast to grace. That keeps carrying. That keeps walking. That keeps trying, even when I feel like I’m getting it all wrong.

Because someday, he’ll climb down.

And when he does, when his feet hit the ground and the world feels less certain and more dangerous, I hope something in him remembers the view from up there. I hope he remembers the feel of trust without fear. Of laughter without caution. Of reaching for more without worrying about the fall.

I hope he remembers that once, long ago, his father carried him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Because it was.