Give them roots and wings

In the days before I started blogging… when we had only one/two and I was much younger… I started writing to my little ones, in little notebooks.

Today, while doing a second round de-cluttering I found some of these notebooks.

Apparently, there were older ones.
I must have stored them away somewhere.
When Elias came, I would write to him from the last page forward.
When Samuel came, I would write to him from the middle of the book.

Here is an extract:

‘Last night you were a really good boy. We usually carry you and Elias round the house to switch off the lights. Previously, you’d monopolise the switching off, refusing to let Elias even feel the switch while you switch off (he’s too young and weak to do it anyway). Last night, you actually took his hand and switched off the lights. You said “Elkan help didi switch off the lights”. Daddy and I went crazy with delight at you…. You said “Elkan very nice.”’

I do not remember much of these, and I can hardly connect the 1.7m tall teenager to the little boy who would describe his own every move.

We like to ask “Where did the years go?” The years seemed to have passed so fast because when we were living them, it was done day by day but when we are looking back, we look back at the 15 years all at once.

I feel a sense of loss today, both about the past and the present. I miss the days when they were little, and I imagine one day missing having them to nag and watch over at home as I do now.

A friend once said, “At every age, there is a reckoning.” I think that the same can be said of stages (seasons) of our lives. At every season, there is a reckoning. There must be the acceptance that what is past, is past. It is over. The best thing to do is to clear the shelves and make space for new assignments and new treasures, for there always will be new assignments and new treasures.

I constantly live with the fear that I will forget – that I will forget who I was, how I used to think and felt. Somehow, I have the desire to hold on to all of me – all of my thoughts and emotions, past and present. I want to be able to recall them anytime I want. Reading those recordings tonight tells me that it is not possible, at least not for me.

Tomorrow, I will come to that reckoning. For tonight, I am trying to hold on to that 2 year old little boy, re-constructing him in my mind, while experiencing the same 15-year old here. I can’t help but feel a slight resentment at the 15 year-old for not being that 2 year-old. At the same time, I feel guilty about resenting that 15 year-old whom I do love too, and I feel sorry for him because it is not his fault and there is nothing he could do about it. And I feel sorry towards that 2-year old who called me “Mama”. I am sorry mama had forgotten so much about you.

I realised two things today. Firstly, they are completely lovable at every stage – they were then and they are now. Secondly, I love them with the maximum amount of intensity I had at every stage – I did then (as a younger, immature mother) and I do now (as an older and mellower mother).

May it be the same tomorrow, and the next day and the day after next, and day after day after day, so that perhaps 10 years down the road, I could look back and say the same two things, and come to a peaceful reckoning.