First Day

Tomorrow officially starts the school year for my boys.  The backpack is packed, the pencil box filled and the required 6 folders in their assigned colors properly assembled.

Tomorrow my 8 year old starts second grade.  Gone are the worries he wouldn't be able to read.  Forming relationships became easier and those 'problem' behaviors all but disappeared.  In the midst of preparations, I realized something.

He will enter the bus a completely regular kid.  No deficits.  No interventions.  Nada. 

He's looking forward to seeing his pal Eli.  He is bummed to go back and promises to still only really like recess.  He didn't really care what he was going to wear, only that it wasn't 'fancy'.

I see the shape of the young man he will become forming in his features even now.  I see time leaping forward.  I see him growing increasingly-himself.  And I am completely fascinated by this new person.

With a son, there is a bittersweet mix.  On one hand is it really possible he can't manage to find his shoes most days? Or remember to brush/wash/clean/anything for longer than 5 minutes or until something electronic and shiny happens by? 

On the other hand is this knobby kneed body which is all angles trying to fit in my lap.  A boy-baby who leans into me just because he can.  He still tells me first of all the newly acquired game characters or levels attained on some beepygamethingy.  He falls asleep reading and comforts his brother when I am mean.

I love him.  I am made crazy by him.  And tomorrow, on first day, I will miss him very much.

Lucky Charms

As I sit silently, eating my bowl of Lucky Charms, I fight tears.  I fight the sinkhole suddenly appearing in my chest where my heart once resided.  I don't want to cry in front of my son because I know it wouldn't be the Julia Roberts sniffle, it would be a full on, Oprah style 'ugly cry'.  My mother in law, my second mother, my friend and his Nana is gone.

He reaches across the silence and puts a horse sticker on my hand.  A reminder, when you are four, stickers are the currency of friendship and love.  And I wonder, will he ever know?

Will he ever know his NaNa loved he and his brother with every fiber of her being?  She gave them everything she had and more.  She gave money, "I'll give you a dollar if you eat your peas!"  She gave them laughter in knock knock jokes in the backseat.  She gave them adventures big (vacations at the beach) and small (forts made out of her comforters and every cushion from the couch).

Will he ever know his Nana loved when it was difficult, sharing grandson time with an ex-husband just so the picnic was a success?  She laughed when it was painful finding joy in the midst of sorrows.  And she shopped because she could.

Will he ever know his laugh echoes hers-bouncing off walls and making every room a little brighter?  It's the only sound, besides my children's cries, to which I wake with a smile.

Will he ever know he sparkles with the same effervescent personality which drew people to NaNa? I know tomorrow 100's will fill the funeral home to bid her farewell.

Will he ever know his little body and soul wrap around you with every hug, as hers did? Short of 5'5" her hugs landed not around your shoulders but right near your heart.

Will he ever know she sacrificed her own badly needed sleep for a few extra hours to lay beside him on the medieval futon? She needed to hear he and his brother breath and dream.

Will he ever know she was a Spartan warrior in the ICU, battling through two heart attacks to stay with him and his brother?  Will he know she died fighting for him?

Will he ever know?

He will.  Because I and his father will tell him.

And this morning, over soggy cereal and with eyes even soggier I tell him how lucky he is to have had a NaNa like her.