He was just a few months old the first time I realized that someday, he would not be "mine". Meaning - now, as a baby/child, he is "mine". I pick him up when I want, I hug him when I want, I snuggle him when I want. I give him eskimo nose kisses at night, and cuddle him next to me when he wakes up too early and I bring him back to our bed in an effort to convince him that it's still time to be asleep. I have no reservations in my expressions of love for him, verbal or physical - he is "mine".
But someday, he will not be. He will want space and separation and independence. It makes me ache to think about not having him be "mine" in the same way he is now.
The first time I lamented this realization to my mom, she reminded me that this does not happen overnight. The heartbreak I am imagining is not something that comes upon you suddenly so that it leaves a deep wound like the one I fear. Rather, you watch your child grow and take incremental steps into an identity and personhood so that it makes sense that one day you no longer give them eskimo nose kisses before bed.
So - when I read blog posts like the one I read tonight, and I think about Gabe and start crying that someday, all too soon, he will not be "mine", I try to remember what my mom said and remember the sentiment in the post that the joys and sweetness of my son's childhood are to be cherished now rather than dwelling on the sadness of looking ahead to the time when they will be a memory.
And - when I see my parents & Bret's parents with Gabe, I think to myself: someday, I hope, Gabe will have children. And I will once again get to have something that is, though more removed, "mine". I will get to pick those children up when I want, hug them when I want, snuggle them when I want. And it will be that much sweeter because it is a remembered joy and because I will get to see Gabe as a parent, doing the same thing.
1 comment:
And yet, there were times when one of you wanted to hug or cuddle and I was too "busy" to do it for as long as you wanted. If only my now self could have told my then self to savor and stretch out those moments, that all too soon your child will be 36! Perhaps that is why parents keep asking their grown children, when are you gonna have kids??
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