Loving You

We sit here and talk about your day. New camp, new experience, new fears. And you whisper, Her name is Mimi, your smile shy. She cried at drop-off and I ask if she did better as the day went on. She was sad, you say. You were relieved you weren't the only one anxious about a new experience. You tell me about her long yellow hair and how she wears it pulled back in a ponytail. I ask if you and Mimi became friends.

Not yet, you say. You tell me that you're both getting used to each other first — in your minds. That tomorrow, perhaps, you will be ready to move forward — that tomorrow, perhaps, you'll be three quarters there. We'll smile then speak when it's time. I see how earnest you are and am impressed by your insight: this is how it can go, after all.

Then later, Mommy can I marry you one day?

No, sweetie. It doesn't work like that. And I tell you how one day when you grow up, you will meet someone who is just right for you, who you will love and who will love you too. And you'll get married and maybe have kids and Mom will be here (Down the street? Next door?) and I'll also be known as Grandma if I'm lucky.

But I'm worried. I think I'll lose you when that happens. Impossible, I say, and tell you about all the many types of love in the world and the love you have for your mom (and the love she has for you, dear Sam) is Forever.

Mommy is forever here loving you.

Of Slides and Such

We are surrounded by hundreds of sunbathers at a very public pool. Even though you are nearing me in height I must hoist you up into my arms (to the amusement of those around us), and walk deliberately into the water. Long ago I mastered the ability to keep my face calm as the icy water envelops us.

We are in now, and as always, you are glommed onto me. Every 30 seconds I say, "John, not the neck!" and pry you from my windpipe. We bob on the water, you and I, and I see you relax in increments. We look for Sam and I point to him high up on the water slide.

You say, "Go water slide?" and I repeat, "Go water slide? Yes or no." You say, "NO!" Okay. We bob some more, we glide from one end of the pool to the other. With a splash, Sam lands in front of us. You grin. Sam says, "John! Go water slide?" You are excited and flap your hands, I know you want to, how you want to!

"John," we say together, "Go water slide? Yes or no."

"YES!" you say. So out we get and Sam grabs your hand. I am hopeful but this scene has played out before: we always come down the slide… just always the wrong way.

We begin our ascent and fall into line behind at least a dozen kids. You are still excited. Sam says, "John, it's so much fun! Go water slide?" and I see your face waver and fill with doubt. You say, "Go home." I tell you that it will be great and not to worry, Sam will go first.

Finally we arrive at the top. There are two slides, a blue and a green. Sam shoots down one and I hold your shoulders until the lifeguard gives us the signal. I glance behind me: the line snakes below.

This is it.

"Green!" shouts the lifeguard. You break free, scream and say, "GO HOME!" I glance at the guard, certain that what I see will be impatience and I steel myself for the long retreat down the stairs. Instead I see compassion. He says, "Take your time." Other kids fly by us while you stomp your feet and yell "ALL DONE!" We are quite the spectacle up here at the top. A few kids stare at you but most smile and tell you, "Hey, it's fun! Don't be scared!"

I think this gives us both courage. I kneel in front of you. "John, I know you want to go down this slide. Mommy is going to help. I will put you on it and meet you at the bottom." You yell your protest again but I see a small smile, which baby, is your dead giveaway. I explain to the guard what I'm about to do and I hoist you again (you are getting so big) and sit you at the top of the slide.

One push and you're off.

Even though I know the pool at the bottom is just three feet deep, I panic for a second — now what? The guard, who is the calmest, most adult teenager I've ever seen, says, "if you shoot down the blue slide you'll beat him down." Now your mom hasn't been on a water slide since the 1970s and really doesn't care to change that but here I go. I hurl myself down the tube and land what seems like an eternity later with a splash below. I look everywhere for your bobbing head. Are you okay? Did you already get out?

Thirty seconds later you appear (indeed your slide is slower), and the grin plastered on your face is a beautiful sight. I catch you, and hug you. "John, you did it! Baby, you did it! I am so proud of you!"

I see that you are proud too.

Moving on

Tonight cackles with the past. I walk through these rooms, this house, this shell and remember bathing you side by side in the pink bathtub, rumpling your hair with towels of stripes and frogs. Back then you slept at the other end of the house in beds under tents, the end where the fire broke out four years ago tonight. Such sweet little boys (of course you still are!), but you were only three then. I remember how you piled onto my lap to read a goodnight story, your hair soft and wet — your father on one side, me on another.

We love you if not each other. 

I kiss you both goodnight and tell you how very proud I am of you, how independent you've both become. Sam, you see my face and say, "Does it make you sad too?" and I tell you that indeed it does, but that it's happy-sad, a mix.

I realize, with a start, that this is it exactly. "Do you know how much Mommy loves you?" I say. [THIS big, as big as the universe...?] you answer with a question. "Even bigger," I reply and you laugh.

Later I watch you sleep, your faces pressed into pillows, almost eight. I know it's pointless to ask, but how did time creep up on us like this? The things this shell could share if sharing were possible. Here we are then, a family of three roaming rooms on our way to somewhere new. I am haunted by the memory of who you were, who I was. This shell, this shell that is no longer a home, has many secrets to tell but I'm no longer interested in the telling, just the moving on. 

Of course in the moving on, there is the telling.