Ethan, at bedtime this evening was not quite ready to let go of the day. He was in a talkative mood, rare recently as he has been reading until deep drowsiness sets in, sometimes even falling asleep on the sofa, a seven-hundred-plus page tome of Harry Potter's exploits resting spread open upon his slowly rising and falling chest. A comforting weight, perhaps.
But tonight something had him stirred up, and thus my need to talk him back down.
"Mom, will you always love me?" he asked. (Not a chit-chat night, then. Alright.)
Although he has heard the answer a thousand times, he somehow needed to hear it anew tonight, for the thousand and first: "Ethan, these two things are absolutely true: I will always be your Mom, and I will always love you."
"Well," he says being practical about it, "we will love each other until whoever dies first."
(Love AND death. Stirred up, indeed.)
"That had better be me!" I tell him, "But preferably not until I'm an old, old lady."
"A hundred and two?" he suggests.
"Yes, that would do, nicely. And with plenty of grandchildren at my knee." (It's never too early to plant the seeds.)
I tell him the old joke: "Do you know how to live to be 102 years old? Get to 101, and then be very, VERY careful."
(Possibly one of the best unforeseen benefits of having kids: old jokes are new to them and considered hilarious; I get to trot out all my favorite shopworn groaners to an appreciative audience. Win!)
He laughs, but then I round the corner back to serious again.
"And also... you do know, love goes on after death. I still love your Grandpa, my Dad, and he is dead."
"Yes," he nods solemnly, contemplating his blanket, and then looks up, breaks out in a big grin.
"But hugs don't, so hug me now, Mama!" and he opens his arms wide. He opens his arms wide, to me.
In honor of today being the very last day of NaBloPoMo November, I decided to sift through my drafts, resurrect one more post from my zombie files. I had thought of this as a snippet, not quite a full post for wordy, rambling me. But reading it over I realized: "yes, it could be enough."
And thus... it is done. 30 posts in 30 days. Goodnight!
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