When I'm Old, I Want to Remember This... My Little Boy

Just before drifting off to sleep, my son rolls over to check that I’m still there and grips my hand more tightly in his. I like to think that he’s locking my presence into his dreams. Sometimes, while lying in the dark or playing in the light, I think about all of the things I need to do.

I think about work, about selling and donating unused baby items, and about how far behind I am. I think about writing, about fall leaves neglected on the dying winter grass of our small yard, and about wrapping Christmas gifts waiting in unopened boxes, hidden away from an eager five-year-old.

When thinking about these things, sometimes I stop and focus on my son’s hand in mine.

I whisper to myself.

“Remember this.”

Remember what it feels like to be lying in the dark, listening to a sweet five-year-old’s breaths become deeper regardless of what remains undone in the rest of the house.

“Remember.”

One day, I’ll be gone.

One day, so will little-boy-him. Eventually too, old-man-him, and I will be reduced to memories of quirks, frustrations, love, almost-forgotten scents, and years of laughter. Reduced to weathered photo albums, some jewelry keepsakes, and a box of once important mementos that hasn’t been opened in years.

I hope to be really old.

I hope that I am wrinkled and stooped and able to meet my grandchildren. I hope to tell them about their father, my now baby boy and my then grown son. I hope to tell them about how brave he is. How he struggled with language and words and how he always finds the light and the laughter. How eager he is to play and to please.

I want to remember now and forever vulnerable him. That when his 2am bad-dreams pull me from my good ones, I know that one day, I’ll miss that.

“Remember this.”

Remember the not-so-little little boy who rolls over to check that I’m there while he fights sleep. The little boy who is proud and embarrassed and silly and funny and perfectly himself.

I want to remember.

I want to live long enough so that I feel okay when I leave. I don’t know that there’s ever a time that any parent feels okay leaving this life but I have faith that some of us manage to do so in peace. That when we leave, we know that we did enough.

That we were enough.

I want to live long enough to tell my unwritten stories. Those of my grandchildren’s father who is my today little boy. To tell stories of myself; now, then, and before, and those of our fathers and mothers even before us. I want to tell my son’s children about their pasts. I want to know their futures. I want to remind them that breathing the summer’s night air or the crispness of a freezing winter evening while looking at the stars has felt the same since forever and will continue to do so. For all of us. For everyone. Forever.

That life and what we do with it matters.

I want to know my old-man son. I hope to know his children and to have them know me. I want to live long enough that my little boy – who will one day be a man, but always be my baby — knows, without a doubt, that I love him; for who he is because of, and in spite of, himself.

I hope to become old enough to see my son realize that he can do anything. That he already changed the world when he came into mine. And that I am proud of him. That I will always be proud of him -whether he is a cashier or an engineer. That what he chooses to do doesn’t matter as long as tries and that he finds acceptance and fulfillment there.

I want to remember that he’s my very best, greatest, ever, most favorite, always. Regardless of what I think I need to do during the rest of my time.

“Remember this.”

Remember this now, when I’m thinking about the to-dos. Remember this tomorrow, when we’re running late. Remember this always.

Remember this.

Kristi Campbell almost always leaves the house in either flip-flops or Uggs, depending on the weather. Although she works part-time, her passion is writing and drawing really stupid-looking pictures for her blog Finding Ninee. Finding Ninee (pronounced 9E for her son’s pronunciation of the word airplane) started due to a memoir, abandoned when Kristi read that a publisher would rather shave a cat than read another. Its primary focus is to find and provide humor and support in a “Middle World,” one where the autism spectrum exists but a diagnosis does not. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.