Just to Hold It

I can’t help but be content with the passage of time.  

My oldest just celebrated a birthday yesterday.  I could say that time is passing too quickly, that he is growing up too fast.  But that would be a silly thing to say, really.  If I had a developmentally delayed child, I might secretly be wishing he were growing up more quickly.  I have seen enough in my lifetime to know that there is much to be grateful for.  I appreciate my child for the person that he is and the person into which he is developing.  I am thrilled, really.  Absolutely, positively thrilled.

We went to the movies on Saturday night to check out the latest kid-flick.  It was rated PG.  I remember when I did everything in my power to keep him away from PG movies.  I accidentally allowed him to watch “Shrek” on DVD only realizing the rating afterward.  That seems like a really long time ago.  He could barely talk when he saw “Shrek.”  But on Saturday night, we talked on the drive to the theater.  We talked while we waited for the movie to start.  We talked on the way home.  We laughed during the movie.  We laughed after the movie, remembering the stuff we laughed at during the movie.  We talked, and we laughed.  We had a good time.

Even though he’s my oldest, he’s still just a child.  I guard him fiercely.  I suspect I will for years to come.  His welfare and his happiness are so important to me.  I watch him struggle from time to time.  I watch his heart break.  I watch his trainwrecks and his triumphs.  I admire him a great deal.  It’s odd to say that, I know, but he approaches his life so differently than I did at his age.  He’s just a joy to observe.

He’s a pain in the ass, too.  Lots of questions; incessant teasing of his brother; expert button-pushing; bouts of whining.  He is, after all, still a child.  But there is even something reassuring about his childish behavior.  It means that I am watching him develop as a multi-faceted and complex human being.  Oddly enough, he inspires in me hope for myself.  For him, every morning is a doorway to all kinds of magical possibilities.  He wakes up with so much energy that he sometimes makes me instantly tired just waking up to his exuberance.  I know that the key is as much his perception of reality as it is anything else.  And if it is about perception, then it is something I can learn again, too.  He helps me never give up hope.

It’s unfair to burden a child with so much…responsibility?  What else would you call it?  I guess it doesn’t matter.  It’s a good thing I don’t burden him with it.  If he carried it, then it wouldn’t be nearly as powerful a thing.  For me, watching him grow up is just that: powerful.  I alone carry the “burden” of getting to watch this really good kid grow into a really good man.  

Some day.  Not yet, though.

For now, he still grabs my hand.  Just to hold it.