“This is how you can always tell your left hand from your right.”
You looked up and down from my face to your left hand and nodded. Just a tiny brown spot, a beauty mark on the middle of your left hand. A spot I was sure would always be right there, whenever you needed it, to decipher right from left.
I felt confident in telling you to use it. It wouldn’t move around or likely grow or change its shape, no matter how your hand grew with the rest of your body as you became a young man.
Remember this spot when I‘m not around to help you, I thought. Remember this spot when you’re alone and don’t know which way to go. Remember this spot when you feel stuck in a world that will confuse and frustrate you.
This spot, this tiny spot on your hand is yours and will always be with you when I can’t be.
Your body—the one I bathed in the kitchen sink, rocked to sleep on my chest, spooned as a baby and toddler—is a mystery to me now.
Everything that was once familiar, 12 years later, is now foreign.
Your silky baby hair is long gone. Instead, dark, straggly strands hide your eyes beneath your ever-present black hoodie. As you walk away from the car at school drop-off without looking back, I say, “I love you. Have a great day!” I wonder if I’ve embarrassed you in front of your classmates.
Sometimes, a deepened voice that seems to have come out of nowhere says, “Mom.” I look around, confused. Who would be calling me Mom in such a low voice?
Broadened shoulders strain your T-shirts, and newly formed legs, like tree trunks, stomp around the house. Where are the tiny feet that barely touched the floor as you flew around the table singing Koo Koo Kangaroo’s ”I eat pizza, burgers, and fries!” for the millionth time?
Will you remember how many times I read to you? The pile of books scattered around your room that we’d grab night after night to settle down? Some of them have been donated by now, but I’ve kept a few for you, if you ever have a family. Will you remember how many times I read Make Way for Ducklings? How I could recite the entire book without turning a page but would anyway, so we could look at the pictures along the way?
Or when you were in the 2nd grade and asked me out of the blue what a crush was? All I could think to say was, “Well, it’s when you love her, but she loves him, and he loves somebody else; you just can’t win.” And you said, “Huh?” I told you that love stinks. (That’s just according to the J. Geils Band, but I think it’s pretty accurate.) “If you do have a crush on someone, and they crush back on you, it‘s rare and hardly ever happens, so pay attention,” I advised.
Or when you were six, and I tried “taking breaks” from your constant questions, requests for food, or whining for new toys by hiding in my room for five minutes (just like they tell you to do in parenting books), pillow grasped tight against my face as you yelled just outside the door, “YOU have to take care of ME!” To which I screamed into the pillow, “That is literally all I’m fucking doing, you little shit!” And then, I gave up any hope of “me“ time, emerged from my room after three (ok, maybe ten deep breaths), and took care of whatever you needed.
Do you recall how you would not let go of my legs if I tried to leave the house without you? You were no taller than my knees when this happened. The babysitter tried in vain to distract you with a toy or treat. When I leave the house now, I gingerly knock and open your bedroom door to let you know I’m going. You grunt, “Okay,” so I know you’ve heard me. But you show no sign of being sad or mad at being abandoned, even temporarily. Barely looking away from your Fortnite game to acknowledge me, I leave, feeling dejected and relieved at the same time.
It‘s ok if you don’t remember all of the things that I do. All of the fleeting memories of your childhood are etched into my own mind. Forever.
You would scream, ”I love you!” when you felt the happiest. Whether it was an amusement park ride or flying around the park on your scooter at top speed, you would freely tell me you loved me exactly when you felt it.
Equally delightful was witnessing you develop your incredible sense of humor. Devouring the Simpsons, Family Guy and Rick and Morty in a way that most adults do. (I strongly believe this is a true sign of intelligence in a person.)
Don’t worry, I’ll remember that spot for you, in case you ever forget it’s there.
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