How I See You: first son {Day 4}

If I think about the possibility of not being around for my children… next week, next year, or in ten or twenty years, my heart constricts so hard it’s physically painful.

Maybe I have a tendency to dwell on morbid thoughts like these, but hubby and I did go through with getting life insurance this summer, so that topic was on my mind for many weeks as we filled out paperwork and had physical exams and discussed our thoughts and plan for “what if?”

What if… I know God holds our future and our children’s, and that is not the part I worry about. I worry about whether my boys will really know their mother if I should suddenly be gone? will they know the heart I have for them? will they know all I hope and pray for them? will they know how beautiful they are to me?

So in the spirit of telling my children right now how I love them… so they will have this for down the road, I am going to write each boy a poem about how I see them…

To my first boy,

who glided nearly silently into our world,

though the night had been eleven hours long…

you are my quiet one.

no, not in volume always, but in spirit.

 

each morning you glide silently to my bedside,

unseen until your nose touches mine.

it’s too much to ask you to close your eyes for sleep

you are my wakey-owl, sharp-eyed, observing,

eagerly drinking the world in long drafts,

your mouth round in wonder at the moon, the stars, the lights of planes passing

or even how the digital clock moves time along.

 

it’s the quiet water that moves most easily at a pebble.

I see the ripples, trembles, echoing out

at each disturbance

but I also see your strength, as you still yourself,

return to equilibrium

quiet your body with a strength well-past your four years.

I see a lot of your father in you.

I see you wonder at your world,

I see you hold back at the unfamiliar,

I see you try out new ideas and words under your breath hours later,

I see you work hard at loving, taking cues

I see you waiting for that other kid to notice you,

and holding back the tears when he walks away.

I see a lot of me in you.

You build, construct, destruct,

Legos, train tracks, paper roads,

You know the difference between pretend and real

and move fluidly between them both.

 

You sing, an untrained voice I love to hear,

You dance, a silly scarecrow all arms and legs,

You run, a new delight

You paint and color and draw and cut and glue and paste

You create.

 

how you are a juxtaposition!

sensitive and strong,

bold and meek,

careless and careful,

thoughtful and oblivious

student and teacher

 

You love Jesus and Bible stories

and Sunday School

memory verses are easy as drinking water for you

and I pray your thirst for knowledge grows

into a thirst for understanding

of Him and that Life-giving Water.

 

I have so much to teach you, my boy.

you are four. you are still new.

I didn’t realize how much you would have to teach me too:

patience and forgiveness and intentions and integrity

and why sometimes we have to leave the laundry and go outside because

the sun is out

and I don’t know how long before these days glide silently

into a memory.

***

Just a note of reflection as I go through this Write 31 Days challenge. I’m putting together these posts on the fly at this points. So I’m looking at them as “rough draft” or “2nd draft” level writing. I hope you’ll bear with me. I’m already critiquing this poem to myself, and wish I had the time to get more specific and personal about some of these points. That will be something I work on as I go through the month.

Feel free to leave constructive feedback on any of my posts. I’m a former English teacher – I can take it! 🙂

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