Tonight after you had taken your bottle in the dark and
quiet of your room, I couldn’t bring myself to put you down, couldn’t bring
myself to let you go, and so I stood there, a foot from the edge of the crib,
with your little hands draped around my neck and your head resting on my
shoulder, felt your tiny ribcage expand and contract with every breath as you
drifted into the precursors of sleep, felt you be, and just loved you, and just
missed you, and just poured all that love and all that missing into the space
around us. You are so still when you’re sleeping, so the opposite of your
little hurricane self when you’re awake, crawling or twisting or turning or
grabbing or pulling (on hair, clothes, toys, furniture, yourself or anything
you can reach, really.) And in that stillness I feel your vulnerability, your
not-even-one-ness, and it breaks my heart, makes my breath catch for a moment
in my throat, so that I have to remind myself to breathe again, to be ok with
it.
You are little but getting bigger every day, growing in
tiny, imperceptible ways, learning, kitten-like in your mannerisms, your
noises, your expressions. I swear I have heard your purr. And I want the moment
next to your crib to last forever, but there are lunches to pack and clothes to
put away and even if I ignore them, the phone is ringing and your brother is
calling me urgently from his bedroom, where he’s probably put his pj’s on
backward, and I have to put you down, my love, I have to tend to other things
and other people, and pray that in the morning, I’ll get to hold you again in
peace, if only for a moment, before we go out into the tornado of the world
again.
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