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When my son with autism was toddling around preschool age, he was an eloper. For those unfamiliar with the term, it doesn’t involve marriage. It’s more about running, disappearing, and unmitigated parental fear.

Everywhere I took this kid, he wanted to run away. There was no sense of danger or need to return to home base. Lucas wanted to escape into the distance. Kidnappers and worse were not on his radar. Those were fears reserved for me.

As his dad, I was conscious of the terrible world out there. Every time he’d run through a crowded mall or try to wriggle from my hand while crossing the street, a million nightmares danced through my head. This kid was three fades away from becoming roadkill, and it was up to me to save him.

And save him I did. Multiple times a day, I’d swoop in to rescue my unhappy dude in distress. There’s nothing worse than trying to pull someone away from a catastrophe as they fight tooth-and-nail to march into their own demise. Yet here it was… fourth time today and it isn’t even noon.

I never thought this nightmare would end. I was convinced I’d be picking his little face off the pavement with a spatula. The end was near.

That was a million years ago. Today, Lucas is 14 years old and he’s still the strong silent type. Also, much like Paulie in the movie Goodfellas, if it seems like Lucas moves slow, it’s because Lucas doesn’t have to move for anyone.

Seriously, we went from the constant pull of a parking lot relay race to fighting him on staying in the car. The boy who literally had to be held by his sleeve from fleeing his preschool graduation now leans back and makes me haul him from the car if he doesn’t feel like moving.

Whether we’re walking through nature or down the street, the fear is less about losing Lucas to the lure of the open road and more about losing him to the lure of the comfy pavement. If he grows tired of walking, he’ll just lay down. He’s done it.

Granted, he doesn’t do it much, but I still keep my eye out. Much like the waning days of his elopement era, his actions aren’t an always-or-nothing thing. Today, he’s pretty mature in that sense and understands that sitting in the street is generally frowned upon.

Much like keeping him from dashing into the night, explaining that sitting on a busy street is bad didn’t go over too well. Lucas doesn’t grasp some of the deeper concepts, and learning to be careful in traffic involved a few near-misses followed by manic pantomime by his rapidly graying father.

Hey! No. Look at me. No. You do. No, no, no.

He appeases me by wagging his finger.

No. Lucas. That’s bad. You can get hurt. Squashed. Just like a bug. No. No sitting in the street.

No, no, no finger wave.

And then we wait. It takes time and, even though it’s down to like 5%, that’s still too much risk when it comes to my son’s well-being. The push to get him to fully understand takes time. It is, however, a massive priority.

Does it seem daunting? At times it has. I worry that this giant kid will realize how giant he is. If he ever decides to fully plank on the floor, getting him up will be an issue. I don’t know how much longer the Bob Backlund double-underhook trick will work. I hope he doesn’t realize it.

What I realize, though, is that this too shall pass. Do you know how I know? I thought the same thing about the eloping. I never dreamed we’d be past it.

At the risk of overly citing The Twilight Zone, it reminds me of the episode where the Earth is getting hotter… only to be revealed as the exact opposite in the end. We’ve gone from fear of losing him from a distance to losing him right at our feet. It’s like the introduction to the opposite sketches.

I know Lucas will get past this. He always does. He did it with eloping and he did it with many other issues that were once deemed unbeatable. For every word he never spoke and every skill he may still struggle with, my son has made some amazing advancements. He’s one of the hardest-working and most determined little men you’ll ever meet.

He doesn’t do it to impress people or show off. I don’t even think he understands that concept. He does it because that’s who he is. It’s what’s inside him. For that, I couldn’t be prouder.

What is impossible today can be conquered by tomorrow. Before you know it, you’re on to the next thing. It’s important to step back and take notice of those milestones. If you don’t recognize how far you’ve come, you never appreciate where you are.

There are few, if any, people I appreciate more than my son.