It's birthday week for our eldest, son, John. I've written about John a few times in the past. He's the reason I started this blog. A few years after he was born, I realized that I wanted to start a blog so that I could share my infertility, my parenting, and my faith stories with others. I wanted others to know that miracles really do happen every day, and John is proof of that. I wanted to tell the story of what happened before he was born, while I carried him inside me, and what has happened ever since I held him for the first time. He's the one who changed everything for me and made me want to write it all down. It is his life that is intertwined in so many of my stories.
I don't write as many stories now as I used to. I guess in part that is because I feel like I've already told my most important story; the story that needed to be shared about John and how long it took for him to come into our world, and how the first time I held him, I finally, maybe for the first time in my life, knew that God truly loved me, not in some allegorical sense of the word, but real, true love that comes at a price that for so long, I did not want to pay.
He's eleven now, freshly minted and even closer to the day that I will be letting him go. I won't be ready, of course. But if you know my story, you know that I was preparing to let him go from the moment I knew he existed. He has never felt completely mine, I suppose because he really isn't. He's always been God's child, and his name reflects that.
Today, John and I are celebrating the beginning of another year for him with some of his favorite things. A hike, just the two of us, through the forest, looking for chanterelle mushrooms. He can outpace me now, and I notice that he is all arms and legs, as his body prepares for the growth spurt that will soon have him looking at me eye-to-eye. While we walk, he talks non-stop about things that I have little understanding of...black holes, rocket boosters, circuits. He stops only for a moment, to kneel down and touch the plant called Sensitive Plant, watching its fronds fold as his fingers brush across them. And for a moment, I see the little boy who walked beside me years ago, and learned from me as I showed him this natural phenomenon for the first time. Today, I take pleasure in knowing that he is still delighted by such simple little moments.
It was when he was almost 5 that I wrote this blog post, on a whim, asking him various questions about himself. How could that have been 6 years ago? But for posterity's sake, I am repeating it here again. Six years later, he's now a child more than half grown, still reminding me that miracles happen every day.
****
