One More Minute

“I just want to cuddle with you, Mommy.”

My precious boy. My little squish who sat on my hip, and trekked with us across the country twice is suddenly all arms and legs, with the top of his head barely grazing my shoulder. When did this happen?! “I was just rocking you to sleep a minute ago”, I think wistfully, “when did this happen. Where did the time go? Did I savor it? Did I enjoy it? Did I live it? Do I have any regrets? Is there any possible way I could go back and start over?” For longer than a second I got it. This desire to step into a portal and travel back in time, this passion that’s eluded many a scientist, and has become simply the stuff of sci-fi and classic movies.

I quickly snapped back to reality, and climbed under the covers with the biggest YES my heart could utter. Yes, I will hold him because I don’t know how many more of these nights we have left. Nights where he calls me mommy, breathes in the scent of home that God weaved around my neck. Nights when he gazes up at me with more love than a 6 year old heart should be able to contain.

My 3 year old son jumps up from his bed and tugs at my back. He wants me to lay in his bed too. “I love you baby,” I say, “but tonight is your brother’s turn”.

The pudginess around his calves is thinning out, his legs look more like an elementary school soccer player than a toddlers. My first born son, often stuck between the comfort of his childhood and the pull and pressure to grow up being a big brother brings.

I realize more and more how much being the oldest is a call to sacrifice. You have to let mommy tend to your siblings, because their cries suddenly become louder than your own. I forget, sadly too often that his cry may not be loud, but he needs me just as much.

“Mommy, I wanna tell you a secret,” he whispered looking up at me. “What, baby?” And he proceeds to tell me the most random fact about his day, about his feelings, about his hopes. I force myself back into the moment and listen…

I’ll probably never know how much I savored that moment. It will probably never feel like enough. I will probably never realize what “present” felt like in this moment, because the present all to quickly becomes the past. I don’t know where the time has gone, ugh, I will probably always want it back.

What I can do, is be grateful. Take a breath, soak it in, let it reach as far deep into my soul as it can. Then let it go. Give it to God. These are some of the things I pray for—God help me remember, not with sadness or melancholy, wishing for the past, but with gladness and gratitude. That this was my life, and I got to live it. Albeit, a little too fast.