A Love Letter to My Oldest Son
I run my fingers through your freshly clipped hair, smell the freshness of you, right out of the shower. I reach for you, but you slip away, headed towards something else that catches your interest. I have to leave to go to work, so I let you go. All day, though, the clean smell of you stays with me, and your soft, short hair. I am filled with longing for I don’t know what, and yet it remains with me all day, nagging at me, like I forgot to do something, something important, and yet the day just keeps moving on.
I want to stop time, to watch clouds pass overhead for hours, sitting in the cool grass. I call the flat ones pancake clouds because they are not cumulus, and I don’t have time to find my cloud book and figure out what they are. Cirrus? Something that begins with an S? Your brother laughs at me and the clouds, and I hope he will remember that someday. “Mom called them pancake clouds…” and think of me fondly and know how much I loved him.
We had a date night tonight, you and I. You said, “Can we ask for a table for two?” “Of course,” I replied. You held my arm, and I told the hostess that you were my date. “Do you want a children’s menu? she asked. You hesitated, but then said yes. I was proud of you for being yourself, even if it might make you a bit embarrassed in front of the waitress you wanted to impress.
I am not doing this to make up for last night, but I am glad to be out with you now. I hope you remember this night, and not yesterday when I yelled, fists clenched, because you and your brother called me from outside for the umteempth time, and I yelled at you because I just wanted to make dinner….and then I came outside, and your dad said, “They just wanted to show you the sunset.” “It was beautiful, Mom. So much pink!” And I died inside. And then apologized and told you I was so sorry to miss it.
How many moments like this have I missed because I was so intent on DOING WHAT MUST BE DONE? Far too many; I know that now. Ten years have gone by so fast. Everyone said they would, and even though I believed them, I didn’t know what to do to make time stand still or lengthen, so I just lived through them, and now it’s later and I don’t know. I just don’t know.
When you were born, it was such a hard, hard labor, and I couldn’t help myself — when you were born, the doula asked me what I was feeling. And I know I was supposed to say something noble or inspiring, but I said the true thing, which was, relief. I felt relief. I wanted you out of me, and you were finally out.
It took me years to recover from that labor and those early days. It was so hard. You hardly slept for 2 years and you nursed all the time, day and night. I slept in a half-sleep off and on for all of those years.
And now you are ten. You sleep in your own room. You have friends, and you are fine when I go to work and even when I travel. I don’t cry anymore when I’m at a conference 1500 miles away from you. I know you are ok. You say that you don’t even miss me, and I know you mean it and still love me. I’m proud of you for figuring out how to be ok without my constant protection and care.
And yet, on days like this, where your hair is freshly cut and you look like an angel, I could weep for the love and the loss of you, who you are and who you were and what you might become.
© Michele Gregoire Gill
June 15, 2015
