Truck drivers, and other magical things
Thursday, 4 September 2025
Virginia Fallon is a staff writer and columnist based in Wellington.
OPINION: He is nearly 4 and man, do I love walking with him.
When I wander down to kindy it takes me at most a quarter of an hour. Our walk back, meanwhile, takes at least 45 minutes.
We walk and talk. We discuss things like what we’re going to one day take camping - “marshmallows and swords” - and why we should always be careful around drains.
He peers through gaps in fences, chats to strangers, and on rubbish day closes every single lid on every single wheelie bin we pass.
Sometimes I do beg him to hurry up, other times - to be honest - I just bribe him.
We have two favourite walks. The first winds along dirt tracks through a local reserve where a detour takes us off to a hut jutting over the wetlands.
Technically, it’s a little wooden hide from which to watch pūkeko and dabchicks, though for us, it’s a ship.
The moment we step inside, he becomes the captain; a role he claimed right from our first visit here. He peers out the slots to keep watch for whales, sharks and storms.
My job, meanwhile, has always been “cooking man”. I make imaginary soup for our crew, and also shout warnings after he spots danger ahead. Sometimes it’s pirates, others it’s vampires; mostly it’s taniwha.
We sit in the dark and talk about good things - usually birthdays. Birthdays, after all, are the best days when you’re nearly 4 and love cake.
“I love you,” I tell him, because I do.
“I know,” he says, because he does.
Our second favourite walk is entirely different. This one is all flat concrete, a shared path running alongside the local expressway, skirting hedges and native plantings that buffer the road.
We come here so we can wave at trucks.
Being nearly 4 he loves trucks. Especially big trucks. Extra-especially logging trucks, car carriers and refrigerated rigs; I’m getting better at naming them.
We stand at the edge of the path and watch for them, then wave madly as they thunder past, willing them to honk. More often than not they do.
A few months ago, in our old spot, it occurred to me that because of the tall hedges and flax bushes, some of the drivers couldn’t actually see him.
All they’d have seen was a middle-aged woman standing alone, frantically waving at passing traffic then leaping about like she’d won Lotto.
Not that I cared much. Nearly-4 is such a short, sweet season, a bubble of belief and wonder, while nearly-50 is a glorious stage in which all your previous give-a-shits get gone.
That’s why we’re perfectly paired, the two of us. He tugs me forward into monsters and magic, while I steady him on the kerb with the weight of years and caution.
Really, he believes the world runs on wonder, and I know full well that it doesn’t.
But all the same, down beside the highway he has a way of encouraging me to throw my heart out into it.
He believes in taniwha, pirates and truck drivers. I believe in truck drivers too.
Their loud, public kindness feels like treasure. Especially when I’m with the nearly-4-year-old who doesn’t yet know that kindness can be scarce.
But it’s still out there, in those moments when we’re walking, when a little boy raises grubby hands at the world and trusts that it will wave back.
We wave at trucks and he knows that everyone loves him. I love him so much that sometimes, frankly, it undoes me.