For small creatures such as we, the vastness is only bearable through love. -C. Sagan
I took these photos weeks ago. I hadn’t even planned to capture them, but as Summit ascended the stairs one morning to brush his teeth and help me put away the laundry, I lunged for my camera and just started clicking.
These were not the two year old photos I’d hoped to capture of him. Although I don’t know what my ideal vision would have been, I don’t think this was it. I’ve photographed him in his room and mine before. Diaper-butted, messy hair, climbing on my bed and reading in his chair. In fact, as I captured him, it all felt like deja-vu. But then, all of our days these days feel that way.
__________
Our children live on the stage we set for them. We create the set, we write the scenes, we build the props and offer guidance on where they should stand. We make gentle eye contact to cue them when it’s their line; prepare them for when the curtain will open and close upon each act. But the real delights of parenthood are the unscripted moments when new actors enter the stage or when the scene changes unexpectedly and we get to see how our children respond to improvisation. Do they roll with the changes, deliver their lines, leave the audience in awe? Or do they stand center stage, eyes wide and speechless as we wait just beyond sight, arms open, ready to hug their tears away and help build their courage for the next scene?
We are living during a global pandemic that we never could have anticipated. Our days are steeped with unanswered questions and unknowns, vast expanses of ‘what if’s?’ and ‘when can’s?’, and a “hope that has no end date” – as a friend so aptly put it.
The things that wake me in the dead of night with a sadness that sends my heart a-swirl are not the fears I would have expected, but the un-lived moments that flash through my mind as if on a reel…
Summit sitting in the seat of a shopping cart, smiling at people who pass us by and who smile right back at him and stop to ask with cheer in their voices “Hey, Buddy – how old are you?”
Covyn running around the playground at pre-school. His own little person with his own little friends and his own big identity, unaware that I watch from the fence, pride filling my heart as I hear his friends shout his name and run to him for hugs.
Summit digging in the sand on a beach full of people, gazing up now and then to watch other children as they splash and play in the water.
Covyn and I grabbing lunch in a packed restaurant. Watching him take a bite of food and seeing his eyes light up as he says “Mom, you have to try this.”
Summit shyly watching other children at story hour, clinging to me until he finds his courage, and then hopping down to play alongside them.
Covyn coming out of a crowded pool after swimming lessons at the Y and speed walking toward me with his arms folded across his small chest and then collapsing into me with an exhausted smile as I vigorously rub the towel against his chilly shoulders.
Summit sitting on a blanket on a patch of grass beside the road, surrounded by his cousins, peering up for his first look at the firetruck that leads the parade.
Family barbecues, park meet-ups with friends, birthday parties, and days with grandparents…
These are the moments we are not living.
We are missing out on all the scenes that make our play so magical and abundant. We are missing out on so many of the moments that help to create a character.
My heart aches for my children. And I would be lying if I said it doesn’t also ache for me, through so many moments of mourning the scenes I don’t get to see them play a role in.
I know we are lucky. I know this too shall pass. I know they are still little and one day The Great Pause of 2020 will just be a story they’ve heard. But for our little ones, growth happens so quickly. They are “becoming” every day and they are currently doing so in the absence of so many of the sets and characters that help them to “become”.
___________
As I held my camera to my face and peered through the view-finder, I watched as Summit dove into his reading chair and grabbed and hugged the photo of his late and beloved “Papa”. I watched as Covyn leaped and played on our bed and teasingly poked his head from under the covers. I watched as they tossed pillows at each other and hugged and giggled. And as I clicked away, all seemed just right for that second in time.
Life –I keep reminding myself– exists in these little moments, after all. This, too, is part of the play.
