I was walking with friend in Hermosa Beach this weekend.  We decided sipping coffee while watching surfers would be fun (it’s a tough life in southern California), so ascended a hill toward the best java-joint of choice, i.e. Peets, as a family on bikes was noticed as coming toward us.  At first glance they looked like the happy little clan, out for a morning ride.  But in closer observance, the youngest boy had a stench of fear in his eyes, as well as increasingly velocity in his wheels.  He’d lost control and was going downhill fast—literally.  His training wheels were tottering back and forth, swinging his fragile body to dangerous degrees.  “Daaaddddy, I can’t stop,” he screamed, as my friend and I went breathlessly numb.  Mom and Dad were on bikes, too, so were of no help but terrifying stares of horror.  He had about ten yards till he crashed through us, and then about another ten before he hit a big intersection.  In what seemed like an hour-long pass of seconds though, his out-of-control wheels spun him into safety.  Spun him into a cinderblock wall.  Into a cement savior who’d come to his rescue.

Though the entrance wasn’t pretty, and rather quite abrupt, painful and bruising, little-boy-biker was alive.  His life had been spared.  By a wall.  By a boundary.  By a brick bordering otherwise known as hard and heartless.  This morning, however, these arms were soft and incredibly heartfelt.

They saw.  They protected.  They saved.

Maybe roadblocks are good.  Maybe walls aren’t always the worst of our predicament.

Stoic bricks on the outside, but sensitive points of saving when I scream, “Daddy, I can’t stop.”