To the boy who taught me true love and heartache...

Holy crap son, you went and turned double digits on me. That was fast.

I haven’t been able to hang on to you lately, you have grown like crazy these past several years. I promised it wouldn’t happen to me. I swore I wasn’t going to wake up with a 10-year-old boy and now here you are. A boy edging so close to being a young man, I can almost get a whiff of what will soon be your stinky-sock clad bedroom. I know I’ll turn around tomorrow and you’ll have team jerseys on the walls and maybe notes from girls stashed somewhere in the drawers. I close my eyes and can envision your baby pictures disappearing from the bookshelves, that copy of “On the Night You Were Born” will no doubt be shoved in a closet or box never to be read again. Please tell me you won’t take “The Giving Tree,” one of your favorite childhood books, and chuck it under the bed or I might just feel as heartbroken and depressed as the sad little tree from the book!

I never knew love 'til he came along.

I wasn’t ready yet to lose you to this big boy stage. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to those little boy hugs of yesterday. I didn’t get enough of that little boy who stuttered with a lisp at age 2, who cried when he fell down and only felt better when I kissed his skinned knees. I’d give anything to see that little boy whining, reaching for the cookie jar on his tippie toes, just one more time. I’m not ready to watch that sweet boy, who waits up for Santa – just melt away into another Christmas memory. My heart isn’t ready.

I know you don’t like hugs from mom that much anymore. And even though you promised me when you were 3 that you’d always hug and snuggle your momma, I guess I understand. This is all part of it. This is the true heartbreak those veteran moms and sometimes strange ladies at the grocery warned me about when I was a new mom. “Enjoy,” they said. “It goes fast.”

Yes, it was heartbreaking to watch you cry inconsolably those many sleepless nights as a colicky infant. Yes, I was sad when you would come running into our bed at night, crying because of a nightmare. Of course my heart hurt the first time you fell off your scooter and you screamed for kisses and Band-Aids on every appendage. But none of that hurt compares to the heartache of realizing that precious little boy so dependent on me just disappeared in what seemed like a camera flash. 

Overnight you’ve almost grown taller than me. You can ride an electric dirt bike, zoom around on a hoverboard, drive an ATV at the farm and palm a basketball. You can solve a Rubiks cube, do division and algebra like it’s nothing, and you know what protons and neutrons are, too. Meantime, your mom is asking Siri how many sticks are in a pound of butter. Who taught you all this stuff? How are you such a big boy now? When did you get so smart and grown up? When did I turn around and miss the little boy?

Ten years ago I thought I knew about love. That was nothing. I didn’t know true love til you came, son. This heart has been yours since you showed up and it will be yours until I die. You are worth all the heartache in the galaxy my sweet boy. I only hope I can hang on for 10, 20, 30 or maybe 40 more.

Love,

Mom

My blog was originally published here at Cincinnati Moms Blog.