Yesterday morning, I had a vivid just-before-waking dream. Our son, about three years old, snuggled in bed between Hiram and me.
He grinned when we called him the peanut butter in our family sandwich, giggled and squirmed when we tickled him. Along with his giggles, I heard the wheezy, asthmatic sound of his breathing – a condition called tracheomalacia which went along with his esophageal birth defect (EA/TEF) – something the doctors assured us he would outgrow as the cartilage around his bronchial tubes hardened.
I woke, disoriented and twenty-six years older than in my dream. I left our bed, where my husband, but no son, lay sleeping. I stumbled through our house, not the one we shared with our toddler son. I couldn’t shake the dream. It lingered all day long. The odd sound of our son’s breathing and the sweetness of his small, high voice and delighted giggles echoed in my memory. All day, I missed our child, ached for his small body crowding in between us, longed for his little boy, sweaty smell. More than once, tears came to my eyes as the realization that those years and those sounds, even the wheezy ones caused incessant worry, were gone forever.
Because the doctors were right. Our son outgrew the tracheomalacia around the time he started kindergarten. He left his wheezy gurgles behind, along with his fascination with dinosaur bones, his adoration for Mr. Rodgers and the Land of Make Believe, and his love of Legos. (Well, strike that last one. He still groves over Legos now and then.)
In a few days, our boy turns twenty-nine, and I rejoice in the man he has become. His face is whiskered, his step confident, his laugh deep, his voice resonant, his breathing quiet. He is a good man – loving, thoughtful, creative, and caring.
But he will never be three again,
never jump into bed between us again,
beg to be tickled again,
delight to be the peanut butter in our family sandwich again,
giggle with his wheezy gurgle again.
So this day, in the wake of a most vivid and lovely dream,
I am grieving for days that can never be again.
I am missing our little boy.
I am learning what it means to be a mom.
