you're 10

you were born with your eyes wide open. your eyes, big and blue and unafraid.  minutes after you were born, you watched me while you nursed and you held my hand. i didn't know back then what would come of you.  what those first months and years would hold and mean and teach.  i didn't know back then what would come of me, either.

life is spent growing us. life is spent unknowing things. life is learning to let go of stuff, and people, and old ideas, parts of our past, and the belief that we control our future. in some ways it seems you already knew that.  you were born with old eyes.

i didn't know that day that i might have to let go of you completely, let go of 'normal' and 'expected', that i would live the lack of control.  i didn't know that i would feel held in the arms of God as i held you in my arms, and feel the tears of God while i cried.

the path we walked down together was unknown, lit by only a lantern, everything obscured except what was in our moment. it felt new and scarey and like we were the only people who had walked it before. but everyone's beginning is like this. our lives are like this. none of us know. we think we do, we think our dreams will come true, our expectations will be met, our ideas will blossom into our reality, we will arrive at where we planned to go.  but really, we are walking beside each other, holding our lanterns, unaware that there is someone next to us in the dark.

for your first few years we examined you.  we put you to sleep with medicine and let you be sucked into a giant magnet to see what was growing inside of your head, to be sure it was your brain and not fluid, or tumor.  we waited for you to do the things you were supposed to do, and we hoped and prayed that you would not do other things- like have seizures or headaches or projectile vomiting. we measured your head everyday while you watched me with those knowing eyes. eyes that somehow put me at ease. eyes that somehow seemed older than me.  we crushed and mixed up a pill everyday to mix with my milk so your brain could develop correctly even though your thyroid didn't work. and you took it no problem. eyes wide open.

i loved you deeply, but i learned to know that ultimately, you were not mine.  that you, like samuel in the bible, you had been given to God.  i learned in a hard way that you were a gift, that everyday with you was a gift- a gift to not take for granted- a gift that may leave me.  i held you tighter, but i held you free-er too. it's funny that we forget this when bad things don't happen.  with out sickness or loss, we forget the life in our life.  we forget how precious we are, the gift we are to each other.  hold on to that for a minute. feel it.  you are a gift.  i'm sorry that 10 years later, i forget...even though...even you.

you used to have a little bomber jacket and white blonde hair and baby teeth. you used to look up at me and say "mo' juice peeeezzzz".  you used to crawl around the kitchen floor in the morning finding and eating whatever was under the table. you were easy to read, you knew what you wanted- a bottle, or sleep, or food. things came easily for you, naturally.  you were ready for things before i was. i often had the feeling that you were waiting for me to catch up with you.

now you're 10.  now you are taller than my shoulder, you can pick me up and i can wear your boots.  you get your own breakfast, take your own shower, you can shovel out the car and start a fire in the stove. nothing about you is little anymore.  and that is awesome and awful at the same time.

these days see i myself all over you and that is the hardest part. i hear me in your voice- complaining too much.  i see me in your eye roll, in your messy handwriting, in your uncapped tube of toothpaste. i see me in the contradiction of your growing confidence and insecurity. i see me in your rush- your desire for the next thing- even when you don't know what the next thing is, even when you like the thing you are doing now.  i see me in your shape of your face, in your love of learning, but your impatience with what you don't want to learn.  i see me in your love of writing and the way you can tell a story, in your sense of humor and you awareness of the needs of others.

but you are becoming your own.  seeing me in you is both beautiful and dangerous.  i can hold you tightly, but i need to hold you freely too- to be you.  but really, you always were- you knew that, you were waiting for me to catch up.

happy birthday sweet jude.