Lion and Magic Boy

Dear Eric,

Now that you haven’t been sick in the past, what ten days or so, I remember again what a total and complete joy you are to be around most of the time. Sure, you get hungry and tired like the rest of us, but you do your complaining with a certain grace I am sure many adults would admire.

I especially love it when it’s time for you to fall asleep. I may regret this later, but you are the first and only of my children with whom, at your age, I still lie down next to and await your slumber. No wait, I take that back: Serena was still nursing to sleep when she was your age (is that possible?), but soon afterward I shifted her into the next phase, which MUAHAHAHA tells me that it’s time for your shift as well. Perhaps.

Anyway, I love lying next to you, whispering to you, hearing you whisper back to me smiling, and nod your head earnestly as if you are telling me the secrets of the world. I can’t make heads or tails of what you say in terms of English, but you speak to me in a language deeper than that, a language that I understand perfectly. In the dark then, we reassure one another, telling each other how much the other is loved, that we’ll still be there when we awaken, that morning will indeed come and we’ll have so much fun then, just as we did today. I hear and sense and feel you say these things to me, just as I am saying them to you.

And then you shift away and enter your Eric-going-to-sleep world, and soon drift away into your dreams. It’s a wonderful and magical place that you go to, most of the time, I know this.

Daytimes, there is much going on. You have taken to using small gestures that come with the presumption that we all know what they mean. Pointing behind you generally means that there is something in the kitchen that you want, but what? The game begins: a pancake? a drink? a cracker? a spoon? what? what, Eric, what? Each successive “what” intensifies your demand; you are telling me what, can’t you see, Mama? I am telling you! That! I am pointing! It is clear! That! That! THAT!

Eventually, I find it. the what, the that. And then you grin and we move on, the tension lifts and we all breathe a small sigh. Until the next thing, the next “that”.

Thank you for the magic you bring with you. It surrounds you and enfolds us all, and we all bask in the glow of that inner light of yours that shines through your fragile porcelain facade, so brightly.

Until next time,
Love,
Mama

[tags] Eric, down syndrome, love, boy, heart[/tags]