This is a short celebration of something so seemingly normal; but as a Dad of a kid with special needs, it’s something I just don’t take for granted.

It’s Labor Day weekend and everyone is feeling the brief, delicious Michigan summer slip away. Autumn and the school year loom before us – subjects of much conversation between parents over the past couple of weeks – and we’re all taking the weekend to drink it in. The local swim club is at capacity because everyone knows the pool will be drained for the season on Tuesday.

But we are not done yet! A neighborhood family threw a party this evening and it felt like half of Julia‘s fifth grade class was there. It was great to be together in our good natured misery as we face cooler temperatures and the snow that will inevitably come.

But here’s the celebration: We had coached Julia that she needed to “roll with it” in terms of what her friends wanted to do (she can get a little bossy). But the good thing was that she was among friends. Knowing the rousing backyard kid games were afoot and seeing that she was merging in nicely, Jocelyn and I became engrossed in adult conversation.

Nonetheless, there’s always the tendency of a parent to “switch the radar” back on periodically and put eyes on their kid. When I eventually caught up with Julia, the games had moved to the front yard and she had drawn her friends into a rousing game of Duck Duck Goose. Julia has an uncanny ability to draw people into this classic game, and peers and littles alike were all a part of it.

I watched – mesmerized – as her crew slowed down a bit and entered into her world. I know they have been with her for a while – some of them for years. But in the face of the widening developmental gap between Julia and her friends and the cruelties I sometimes see (and experienced myself) in middle school, I caught myself wondering, “Who are these marvelous children?”

It didn’t end there. As the darkness deepened, Julia came inside without the rest of the kids. I was told that they had gone to a nearby park for a round of flashlight tag and wasn’t surprised that it didn’t seem like her cup of tea. It was later that I found out that she went to Jocelyn to ask permission to go. Julia’s friend Parker had even come back to make sure she was a part of the game.

I could have let it go and simply been satisfied knowing that Julia was having fun in the dark with her friends, but this was too momentous an occasion. Something deep in this Dad’s heart wanted to witness my daughter’s newfound autonomy.

I stole down the block to the park and joined a couple of dads already keeping watch from a distance. I reverently bore witness as the little silhouettes darted round in the darkness, my heart bursting with the knowledge that one of them was Julia. She was just another one of the neighborhood kids drinking in the warmth of twilight of early September.

It didn’t last long. Julia lost a bit of altitude and we knew we’d eventually have to get her home for her heart medicine; but seeing her running ahead of me back to the party with her friends was one of the highlights of my summer.

It was, indeed, a very good day.