There is magic happening in my house right now. At night, when the day is done, and all becomes quiet. My son is growing. Stretching in the dark, like he’s been sprinkled with fairy dust. Filling out the corners of his bed. Inching himself away from childhood. Releasing an odor that is both the sweetest and most repugnant I have ever known. Teenage boy, I think it’s called.
On the floor next to him, our new pup sleeps. The two of them—littermates, really– in cahoots. Undoing each other’s good behavior. Instigating. Acting dumb. Refusing to give up their bones. Or pay attention. Or go to bed. For two bright ones, they seem clueless to the transformation at hand–from boy to man, and pup to sire–wanting only to eke out every last moment of play the day will allow. When they finally collapse, I find myself relieved. Glad for the silence and the calm. Even though I know, as my son drifts off, that time is hurrying up.
I imagine the flood of hormones, at night’s command, causing his cells to reproduce en masse–lengthening bones, building cartilage, producing proteins. Hormones that also make his voice drop low, his baby fat dissolve, his feet burst out of new shoes in a matter of weeks. Where he was once the smallest, he is now somewhere in the middle. Average, you could say. And yet, he is not average at all.
Watching my boy sleep, I wonder who he will become. What paths he’ll choose to learn the lessons of his life. If it will be easy or hard. If he will stay or go. Though who am I kidding? I already know that he’ll be off when the time is right, forever keen for adventure, and nature, and newness.
I do wish a few things for him. How could I not? I hope he remains drawn to what is different, and not cling to what is the same. That his imagination stays limber. And his heart open. That he exercise a little caution when necessary, for he has always been one to leap first. But mostly, I pray he has the chance to experience, however it comes, the kind of love I feel for him: knee-buckling, breath-taking, all-consuming love. Because in the end, it just may be the only thing required for him to know that he has truly lived his life.
