Dear little boy,
This summer, you’ll probably see me stopping to simply look at you more than usual: smiling, deep in thought as you play uninhibitedly, unabashedly enjoy the merry-go-round every Friday afternoon before we meet Grandma, and as you playfully skip though the sprinkler during hot afternoons in the backyard.
This summer feels a little different from the last thirteen summers of your life, and certainly the summers to follow this one will also be quite different indeed. This summer, you’re turning 14, and the next you’ll turn 15. And although you still have that little boy look about you now, by this time next summer, you will have grown so much more that calling you a little boy will no longer do.
You won’t look like my little boy, you won’t sound like him, and the rest of the world will no longer perceive you as little. You’ll be taller, your facial features will change, your voice will become lower, and a lot about your body will change as you develop into the man you’ll be in such a short while.
But before this happens, I’m going to need some time to prepare myself. I foresee that this summer is going to be a summer of ‘lasts’ – the last summer of the little boy.
Lately I’ve been looking through old photos and watching videos of you during your little boyhood. I remember thinking there was always so much more time, almost like this summer would never come and we would stay like this forever.
Last week you stood in front of me, and I noticed your eyes are now just a couple tiny inches below mine. I paused to settle into the realization. You used to look up at me with raised arms and I’d lift your little body and hold you, facing each other at the level at which you do now standing before me. I couldn’t recall the last time I picked you up and held you. Strange how that happens. For years, a mother bends to pick up her child and then at some unnoticed point in time she just stops and it’s over. Forever.
I asked you if it would be okay if I picked you up one last time, to hold you up one last time as my little boy. You put your arms around my neck and when I raised you up, you wrapped your long legs around my waist and laid your head into the curvature of my neck, both of us silent as I swayed slight and slow, back and forth, the mother-child dance we shared for so many years. I squeezed you harder as if that could make the moment last longer or imprint it deeper into my memory – the way you felt, the smell of your hair, and then the final bump of your feet as I put you down, the space then between us.
You said to me in all your innocence and sincerity, “I will hold you forever, Mom. I’ll always hold you,” and I said back that I would hold you, too, forever.
Little boy, you’re not little anymore. You’re barely even still a boy. I have always considered myself blessed that your little boyhood has stretched this far into our lives. Since you were a baby all those milestones came later than other kids. Your babyhood and toddlerhood were also equally stretched out, allowing me more time to enjoy that phase of your life, of my life just a bit longer, despite the challenges and difficulties you faced growing and developing on the autism spectrum, and despite how hard it was as your mother to see you struggle and fall behind. I enjoyed you as we moved through life together at your pace. But for some reason, now feels like the time to grab on more tightly to each handhold, relish each high-pitched giggle, and remember each brush of your baby-soft cheek against my face because no matter the pace at which you continue to unfold, there is no stopping biology.
You still love doing many of the same things you still enjoy – riding your bike pretending to be a train, watching Baby Einstein videos and pretending to be the conductor of the orchestra, running from ride to ride throughout Thomas Land at Edaville Railroad, and pumping your arm at passing vehicles from the sidewalk hoping for a beep. And little boy, that is all fine with me.
While the rest of the world might see a young man and wonder why he’s in line for the carousel, I’ll be watching, looking on proudly as you stay true to yourself, pure in spirit and in joy, unconcerned and unaware of a world that expects differently from a young man, and hoping you never outgrow that.
Until then, though, little boy, I will be mindful and experience every moment of this summer with you with an open heart. I’ll remember this year as the last summer of the little boy and savor each and every little ‘last’ it has to offer. I’ll take my time as I say my goodbyes, on my own terms.
Goodbye little voice. Goodbye little laugh. Goodbye little hands, little feet. Goodbye, little boy.
This Imperfect Life
By Jean Perry