In the mornings, after everyone has gone to school, I make my way through the house. I pick clothes up off the floor, stack notebooks, flush toilets and yes, make beds. Now, while it’s true that my children make their own beds, I remake them. I wonder if, when they are in their rooms at the end of the day, they look at their beds and marvel at how the duvets are smooth and unruffled, the pillows piled just so. Do they think, damn, I make a fine bed? Do they silently thank me for my controlling ways? Probably not.
All this to preface a confession. Sometimes, if it is chilly or I am tired, I crawl into one of the beds, like Goldilocks. It is still warm under the covers they’ve hastily spread. My daughter shares her bed with a dozen stuffed animals who stare glassy eyed at the pop star posters on her walls. My son shares his bed with a laptop, Blackberry and, currently, Plato’s dialogues. It is dark in the bunk bed and smells of little girl. It is light in the double bed and smells of man. When I stumble out I step over cleats and socks and jewelry boxes and ponytail things. I am disoriented by my detour, confused by the people who have moved into my children’s rooms, the changelings who have replaced them. I am thrilled and saddened by their “otherness.” I realize that the better I know my job, the less I will know them.
Years ago I stood at a crosswalk with my sons. They were no more than four and seven and I held their hands, waiting for the light. A car pulled up in front of us. A mother and her teenage son sat silent in the front seat. Neither spoke, nor did they spare a look at each other. I could hear the radio, tinny through the half open windows. I felt my heart clutch, watching two strangers beside each other, lost to each other, no longer mother and son but, I supposed, adversaries and I dreaded the day I would take my place, just like them. The boys tugged at my hands but I couldn’t stop looking at the car. Suddenly, the mother and son turned to each other and cracked up. They laughed and laughed and I saw the boy pound his hand on the dash and lean his head toward his Mom. She tipped hers, too and I noticed that their hair was the very same color.
In that moment of (unnecessary) preemptive mourning, I saw my future and if I didn’t yet know that it would include a daughter, I was certain it would include having a laugh with my son in the front seat beside me. My point, if I have one, is that whatever time and growing up has stolen from me, it has given to my children and, if I do things right and hold very, very still, they’ll give it back.