Taking it like a man

When he hurts himself he calls my name,
tears stream down his dirty cheeks.
If he's far away he screams to his brother...
"Go get Mama!!!"
I come running when I hear his cries
not like the other ones which I try to ignore.
This is a different kind of a cry,
the kind that tells me he's really in pain.
I know there's nothing I can do to make the hurting go away
but still I run to his aid, to hold him, to rock him,
to press his head against my cheek as I whisper in his ear:
"mama's here..., I know it hurts...., I'm so sorry that happened."

Today I was at the park watching the boys ride their bikes over the dirt bike trails.
An older boy in his late teens was there doing jumps & tricks. He fell off his bike coming down from a jump and hit hard, really hard. The mother in me gasped and almost leapt out of my chair to see if he was okay. In obvious pain, he abandoned his bike. Walking off somewhere to be alone. He leaned over behind a tree, I couldn't see if he was crying or not. There were other teenagers there, his friends I think. They watched him walk off but left him alone. Letting him deal with it like a man I suppose. After a minute or two one of the teenage girls followed after him to see if he was okay...

As I watched this unfold I wondered at what point does a boy change from instinctively calling out for his mother to pushing everyone away to inwardly deal with the pain? The boys still call out for me when they're really hurt. It doesn't happen very often anymore because they're getting so tough. But when it does, I come running. Grateful for these moments when my arms and soothing words can bring some degree of comfort to their pain as I wonder upon the day when this will all change.