Counting Days

A response to Sandra Boynton’s Doggies: A Counting and Barking Book #WoShoStoReMo Day 4

They told me it would go quickly, and I even believed them. The part I didn’t expect is this, the many endings. Already past are the last times I rock you to sleep, the last time I can carry you on my back, the last time you need me to help pour the milk or sound out a word or hold the back of the bike while you peddle and say “don’t let go”.

Because that’s all I’m doing, all I’ve ever done, is let go of you, by degrees. I let go of the ideas that you would be a certain type of kid, I let go of the plans for how I thought my life would be, I let go of my own past and all it’s good and bad. I let go of your outgrown clothing, your unsigned undated artwork, your childhood hair and baby teeth. I let go of my hopes and dreams and visions for you, trying to understand what was mine and what was yours, and let you be your own person.

So now we are in the counting down of days. Your last first day of school, your last parent-teacher conference, your last birthday when I know for certain you’ll be home. I touch the things you used to love, and I remember your tiny hands and curious mind. I can hear so perfectly your baby voice reciting your favorite lines from favorite books, head nodding earnestly in tempo. I feel the rush of time, even as you talk of feeling time pressure and turn from me to your work. I keep waiting for the time to come when we are all relaxed and easy, when we talk for hours about everything and nothing, and that time keeps slipping away in the busy-ness of life. 300 days or less now, and so much left to say, to share. I won’t make a calendar like we did for when your birthday would come or when we would go to the library, but I will note each passing day, and on some of them I hope you will sit next to me one more time and smile while I read aloud. Because each day goes quickly, and I must believe that at least some of the endings hold beginnings too.