A Walk A Walk

Or as you pronounce it 'awah-awah'.

Right now it's in your top five words and phrases along with 'Dahnnn!!' (down)

which of course allows you to awah-awah.

Today you referred to Grandma as 'Mum-Mum', which may just stick.

She's probably in the air by now

and my heart is going to ache when you awaken from your nap and ask for her,

curious as to where your new and wonderful companion has gone.

I will tell you that she went home and that we'll fly to see her in just a few short weeks

and you'll nod or stare and ask for more rice cakes or strawberries.

Ten minutes later you'll repeat the question and so on and so forth until you loosen your grasp on the mystery.

You may wonder why your mama is slower today than she's been in the last week

or where all the conversation has gone

but I could never explain to you now or maybe ever

why saying goodbye to a loved one is so hard

about getting older or mortality or any number of things that make life what it is

in its fullness.

Existential stuff that you'll cover in A.P. English 

but never begin to grasp until you're older.

Or maybe you'll be just like me

and on a summer evening when you're seven or so you'll sit on the back porch with me

and look at my hands, suddenly and horribly realizing that someday they'll look older,

that I will get older.

If you're anything like your old lady you'll freeze the moment

forever in your gorgeous brain, what I wore, the temperature of the air, the crickets

and the watermelon rinds on a brown and mustard-yellow ringed dish.

Maybe it will define the way you see the world as it did for me,

the constant urge to capture and celebrate the beautiful now

that blooms like a deafening and constant flower

somewhere deep in the fabric of the cosmos

or maybe you'll fly through your years without the heaviness of such creative

sensitivity, awash in numbers of sports equipment or chess pieces.

I cannot think one is better than the other, except that other options might be a lot less...aching.

Your mama aches an awful lot in the best and worst ways.

I ache

When I look at you

or your handsome Daddy

or my own parents

sister

friends

felines

Time of late has been flying for me

though it has not even begun to fly for you:

I suspect growing bones and teeth and motor skills is arduous work

that adults would resist and bemoan.

I think there is so much bravery in being a baby.

After all these years of being a daughter

I am still somebody's baby: can you imagine that?

The very same hands that guided your stomps and steps this morning

did the same thing with me when I was small.

We are so lucky to know her, baby boy,

so lucky to be of her tribe.

I suspect by the way she made you smile that you already know this, that there are certain things that don't need to be taught to be understood.

xoxox,

Mama