October 17, 2016

Study

31 Days of Practicing Faith

In October, I am free writing for five minutes a day—raw and unedited—on practicing faith in the every day. Each day is based on a different prompt from 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes.

{Day 17} – Study

I study the way his hair falls across his forehead. He doesn’t really have a part, but instead his soft dirty blond hair grows in a spiral from the crown of his head. I watch his breath rise and fall in regular patterns and his eyes dance under their lids as he dreams. I notice the way he sleeps curled on his side or sometimes will tumble over onto his tummy and tuck his legs under him, the way he did when he was a baby lying in the bassinet next to my bed.

He’s my last, my baby. At five he still has some little boy features that allow me to still think of him as a baby. He runs to me to be held when he’s scared. In the mornings he doesn’t want to get out of bed until he cries out “mommy” and snuggles against me for a few minutes before rising. I study these days like I need to remember each moment, each feeling. The way his hand fits just into mine when he reaches up to grab it each morning while walking down the hall to his classroom. The mispronunciation of words that make him still sound so little.

I know time will snatch these memories from me. They will fade in the background of all the other days that will happen between now and the time he is grown. Maybe if I memorize them now, I won’t lose them. Maybe if I hold onto them tightly in this moment, he will always be my baby. God, help me to let go just enough but still know how to hold onto this…

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