Tonight I spent a rare quiet with Loren while he was sitting in his computer chair, an old overstuffed thing left over from the early years of my parents’ marriage that Lo has a strange attachment to, and I was perched on the sagging arm as he clicked through page after page of stuff he had been saving to show me online. I wasn’t really paying too close attention, mostly just nodding my head and enjoying the chance to be close to him in a peaceable moment when all of a sudden he said, “Um, Heather? Are you sniffing me? If you are that’s pretty whacked, you know.”
Crap, he caught me. I had been absent mindedly rubbing his head and smelling his hair. Not in a creepy way, just in a mom way. All moms do this and any of them who who deny it are big, fat liars. Loren obviously expected an answer to my bizarre behavior, so as it was perfectly sensible I replied, “Well, of course I am.”
“Oh. Huh. Why? What do I smell like?”
“Well, you don’t smell like my little boy anymore,” I answered with a sudden fist of grief to my gut.
“What do little boys smell like? And, again? This is a weird ass convo, Mom.”
“Little boys smell like syrup and the morning sun.” And I could remember all the times I smelled his big head when he was small and sweet and innocent. The days before he started tossing around the f-bomb with such ease. Before he started coming home with hickeys on his neck. Before he took to skulking in his room and only coming out for food or money.
“Good thing you still have Devon to sniff all you want. He’s always covered in goo, he must make for some good smells.” Yes, Devon does make for good mom-sniffing. But he’s not Loren, my first born who is now more than a head taller than me and a world away most days. I’ve never been the sort of mom who cried at the first day of Kindergarten, I always figured they were moving on and that was a natural and good thing. But right now Loren seems to be moving away in light speed and it hurts to lose him. He’ll come back someday, I know this. He’ll be more mature, less of testosterone driven animal. And it will be good. But letting him go hurts something fierce and makes me yearn for the days when he snuggled into my lap and held his head still while I smelled the beauty of him.
The warmth of late summer has faded to frosty mornings and the demise of my garden. These were taken a couple of weeks ago when Devon discovered he actually enjoyed the concept of nibbling a few kernels of fresh corn. The deer and rabbits got all the other ears and my cherry tomatoes as well, it was pretty much a daily buffet for them all.
You’ve articulated perfectly the angst that can fill me when the sun and the moon and the clouds meet in some odd place.
patois´s last blog ..Descent: Haiku
It hurts in the most unexpected of ways. In all the moments of motherhood, this is the hardest and most heartbreaking. Maybe because it’s the last break? I don’t know, but it sure smarts.
You said it perfectly – I feel the same way about my older son. I’m so proud to see the young man he is becoming, but some days I so miss the little boy he was.