Casting A Stone

I hope that my son never realizes just how much I hope for his everyday safety and the ability to steer clear of life's random annoyances. I think the weight of that expectation might crush him. Yesterday it all came crashing down around his ears when he threw a rock at some lady. To be fair, he wasn't throwing the rock at her, but in a random trajectory that had the unfortunate happenstance of intersecting with the path of a woman who was out for a walk in the late fall afternoon.
Sadly for my son, she was not one of those "kids will be kids" kind of ladies. She was more of the "you kids get out of my yard" sort, and wasn't interested in hearing any lame excuses about how he had never intended to hit anyone and it would have to have been the most amazing ricochet shot in the world, since it was a carom caught her. She would have none of his apologies or attitudes - even if he had given her any.
To be clear: I don't think he should have been throwing rocks around in a residential neighborhood, and I would have been grouchy if I had been the one pegged by the errant missile - my kid or not. When the lady walked my son down the street - marched - to see his parents about all this, I could feel all the knots in his stomach and the tears welling up in his eyes. He's a good boy. He has a conscience as big as all of outdoors, and no real sense of aim. He stood by quietly as the riot act was read to him. I could see the wheels in his brain turning trying to make sense out of this random accident. What could he possibly be learning? My wife asked the woman if she was all right, and was told abruptly that it did not matter, since the important issue was that she had been violated in the extreme. In the calf. Leaving no discernible mark.
But it's the principle, isn't it? Unfortunately for my son, he was at a friend's house, and there were five other sets of parents ready to chime in with their opinions and visions of the correct and appropriate response. By the time I got to him, my lecture must have felt like the most warmed-over of all possible parental nonsense. I could say that I was disappointed in him, but anybody who lived through nine versions of the "good-choice/bad-choice" sermon without running screaming into the night has my vote for kid of the year.
And when all was finally said and done, I think he knew that. I told him how I once broke a window on accident and I was terrified that the lady who came screaming to the door was going to do me bodily harm, but she was more scared than angry. I told him that someday he would tell his son about how he once made a similar mistake. He said he hoped not. Upon further reflection, neither do I.