MY SON

I don’t know why your mood can shift like a cloud

why you’re unhappy after breakfast

not wanting to stand on your new step stool and brush your teeth

You’re twenty months and ten days old, my son

and you cannot tell me what pushes sundry feelings to the surface

and you may not even know yourself

You attend a half-day daycare twice a week

When I drop you off - tears

yet at pick-up you are smiling

It’s still new, yet you know as soon as we arrive that I will leave

I press your beloved teddy against your chest

the bear your father and I picked out for you last Christmas

and, though he’s only a year old, is growing worn from daily love

real as real can be in the plaything magic of “The Velveteen Rabbit”

I place you in the arms of your teacher, and as you cry

you don’t know how my heart stays with you

holding you, aching for you

my feet ready to fly back to you if the teacher calls

You don’t know how I’d only leave you with someone

whose arms and eyes and words I trust

You don’t know how long it will be until I return, or if I will at all

so I drive home in agony as to if I should have left you at all

Are you too small to learn to be brave?

I give you all of me all the time, and want more

More experiences for you with friends and caretakers and new activities

and yes, more time for myself to recharge and pour into you

My son, you upended my identity

You changed me into a whole new person: a mother

someone whose heart is tethered to yours

Now, everything hard for you is hard for me

and this, this leaving, even for a few hours, is hardest yet

I think it’s good - more and more I’m assured it is

Your teacher tells me you are quickly distracted

and when I return

I see you busily engaged, playing happily

You can’t yet tell me about your day

though when we have a snack at home you babble cheerfully

while my heart sings

Till then

the image of your small and trusting face is a continuous mirage in my eyes

until you’re in my arms once more

my arms which are here for every sunshine and storm

Even when I don’t understand, I receive.