We played marbles today. You lined up thirteen of them in the shape of a cross, tucked the shooter orb between your fingers and flicked it with your thumb. They clicked hard against each other. Half a dozen went spinning off the mat, colors of fire and ice, little planets looking for orbit.
It was my turn. I launched the jumbo marble out into our little bit of space and knocked two free for me, a pear-colored one with red freckles and a purple with orange swirls. I scooped them up into my fist and without thinking I put them to my heart, mine to keep.
A few months ago, I held you close at my side on a warm spring evening. We looked into the blackish-blue before bedtime and saw two little lights hanging close to the moon. You kept watch with me, night after night, checking for changes. We talked about how they moved, spinning out in space, at first getting closer together and then further apart. Two planets circle dancing.
I saw me and you. Five years ago, I read a little book out loud for your baby ears. My emotions all drunk with post-natal hormones, I could not make it through the words: “One day a little boy was born into the world and for a very small moment, his mother held him close.” I choked there, salt in my throat and slurred through the rest, “But soon they came to clean him up and right then the mother knew. Life with that little boy would always mean letting him go.”
And now I think of all these hours and days that have led us into years…how I have had to open my arms and watch you go. There is the recent memory of you at the zoo, the little optimist ready to race the fastest animal in the world. You stood still for a moment at the starting line next to the cheetah enclosure, like a pebble held back in a slingshot. The timer buzzed and you were off, bulleting, really thinking you were the fastest of the two, you in your Puma running shoes. This is how you are, always believing, your heart pushing your legs and arms to full speed.
Many mornings, you bounce from bed, pull on a costume and come hover at my bedside to be the first thing my eyes see out of sleep. Captain Hook snarling in my face. Optimus Prime ready to defeat the Decepticons. A T-Rex hungry for breakfast. You put the alarm in alarm clock.
You stand outside your little sister’s door, waiting for the first sound, your invitation to run in and tandem jump on her trampoline bed. It’s a wonder our mattresses have any springs left. The two of you dash through hallways, more like elephant stomps than pitter patter. “I can run so fast you can’t see my legs,” you tell me. And these days are passing by me the same.
Out there, Venus and Jupiter, they kept moving, sliding past one another in our night sky.
I keep telling you to stay small. You don’t listen. You outgrow your shirts. Your legs get long. Your arms get strong. And here you are, five years old already. Double this and you’re ten. Quadruple it and you’re out of my hands and into the broken world on your own.
This year you learned the worst part of it…people pass away. I remember how I came to you in the fall, interrupting the end of Snow White with my crumpled face in front of the screen. Great Grandpa was gone. I sobbed. But your heart knew something deeper of it, watching the Prince kiss death away. You lifted your hands and cheered for Great Grandpa, “He’s in Heaven! Right now!!”
I haven’t wanted to talk with you about death. It scares me as all big changes do. But you kept hearing whispers of it…people in tornado wreckage, our dog hit on the country road…and then, Daddy telling me about a friend’s brother who died right in the middle of an Independence Day party. I hoped you hadn’t heard him, but it was too late. You came to me with your head bowed low, mumbling, “I don’t like it when people pass away.”
Just this week, you came and circled your arms around me and whispered in my ear, “I don’t ever want you to pass away.” You said it again to me tonight, “I never want to give you up. I don’t want you to ever die.” And after Daddy told you he’d step in the way if a ferocious lion was coming for you, you choked your fear out to him with your face crumpled and tears streaming: “But I don’t want you to die.”
If death has any sting for us believers, it is in the letting go of this nearness, in pausing this togetherness, in cutting the conversation short. You are starting to feel that.
I think of us, our little family, a few spinning marbles like a cluster in Earth’s night sky. We are together for this time, trying to pause in the moment. And yet we are always on the move, each of us in our own unique orbits around the Center of it all.
But I am with you for this precious phase. And I’ve got to be all here, turning to watch you transform your robots and build little cities from scratch. To swoon at the sweet little picnic lunch you set up for me. To take a picture when you grab a cardboard box for a helmet, one of Daddy’s cymbals for a shield and a wooden spoon for a sword, a little knight in not-so-shining armor. I am near for this time, so I collect your kisses and your bittersweet words. I listen to your heartfelt prayers and I know you are no meteor zooming through space directionless, but you are a boy on track centered in the truth that “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
He holds us together for now, like Venus and Jupiter hanging near the moon. And so, I get down on the floor with you and smooth out the mat. We roll our little spheres into the center of the circle, every color counted. And we play marbles.
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Linking with Casey Wiegand and Always Alleluia.
Such beautiful words! What a sweet little man. So wise and such a young age.
Love it! Thanks for sharing your words to Elliott with us. The years go by so quick.
I can’t believe it has been 30 years since my firstborn turned 5. Seems like yesterday we were having banana bread and lemonade with Morris.
Your firstborn can’t believe it either! I have to remind myself it’s not about numbers, it’s about beautiful life and relationships at every stage…and resting in the fact that in Him we live and move and have our being.
What wonderful prose. I really enjoyed reading this! You’re really getting that Creative Writing Bug in me all fired up. Yikes! 🙂
Thanks, Amber. This one put itself together with all of the images and stories that met in our game of marbles. I would love to see what comes to you as you’ve got your eyes open for images to put into words. And have you ever tried using writing prompts? It’s good exercise if you’re out of the practice of creative writing. I can send you a few ideas if you like. 🙂
I recently read that “children are balloons that float past us.” It is hard watching students graduate but a good reminder that they are not “mine” and each release is a celebration.
Yes. And this perspective of holding loosely makes for better parenting and teaching, I think, since unfortunately, many of us take for granted the things that we consider “ours”.
Beautiful Darcy. What is the name of the little book you were reading to your little boy?
Yes, they are always moving away from you, so hold them tight while you can.
The book is “Be Safe Little Boy” by Karen Kingsbury. If you click the linked text next to the quote, it will take you to the book’s page on Amazon. It was a tear-jerker for sure!
Here is a poem that was on the wall of the nursery before my first baby was born. I cried
every time I read it. Before he was born, after he was born, and even now.
Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,Hang out the washing, make up the bed,Sew on a button and butter the bread.Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.Dishes are waiting and bills are past duePat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekabooThe shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stewAnd out in the yard there’s a hullabalooBut I’m playing Kanga and this is my RooLook! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrowBut children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.By Ruth Hamilton..
I posted part of this wonderful poem on my old blog several years ago, but I don’t know if I’ve ever read the entire thing. The stanza about the cobwebs was framed in our home while we were growing up and then my sister in law had a cross-stitched version of that excerpt in her childrens’ nursery. But the whole poem read as one is even more powerful!
Beautiful – particularly the part about us all spinning together, yet still in our unique orbits around the Center of it all. What a blessing to be a part of our children’s everyday story, knowing that we’re the closest and most intimate witness to their part in the Big Story.
Thank you! I love what you said about us being the “closest and most intimate witness to their part in the Big Story.” What a privilege.
Love reading your thoughts. You are a beautiful mother and blessed to be selected by God to parent your precious children.
Your prose is what I aspire to in my own writing ventures: finding Truth and beauty in each moment. Thanks for being an example and inspiration 🙂
Breanne- Glad to know you’re encouraged here. I’d love to read some of your captures and hear about the beauty in your everyday. What kinds of pieces do you write?
I’ve just begun blogging with the purpose of writing more intentionally. You’d be welcome to check out my posts! truthnsprinkles.wordpress.com