What Is Right Before My Eyes

I don't usually let myself do this.

Imagine if Elias were born full term and healthy. No list of diagnoses. The ability to fully communicate. To walk without the help of canes. To make eye contact. To put on his own socks. To use the toilet.

A boy on the cusp of teen-hood: strong, capable, opinionated, wild--emerging into his own.

I thought about it this weekend, as Nick and I gathered wood from our clearing to heat our cabin, as Olive carried logs to the truck, and Elias leaned on his crutches with a scowl wondering when we were going back inside.

I thought about it as I watched another boy, a year older than my son, help his parents with Thanksgiving dinner, responsible for cooking the turkey, a boy on his way to becoming a man.

I thought about it as I learned this same boy can babysit his kindergarten-age sister, and I flashed to Elias clawing at Olive, screaming: "I want to hurt her!"

What if Elias protected his baby sister instead of trying to maim her? What if he played games with Olive and helped her with homework? I can see them sitting at the table together, Elias helping Olive sound out words, him teasing her in a playful way, the admiration in her big brown eyes.

"Elias doesn't ever have friends over," Olive said to me this weekend and in my imagined world he would invite his buddies to come sledding down our driveway.

And instead of needing a ride up on the snow machine, he'd climb the hill with his muscled legs, laughing with the other boys as they pulled the runner sleds behind them, as they threw snow at each other and elbowed ribs.

I'd worry about the speed of their descent as they rounded the corner towards the s-curve; instead of worrying about leaving my twelve-year-old son alone with his sister and her friends, as they waited for a snow machine ride, and I trudged back up the hill on my own, alone with my "what if" questions, like generals, beckoning me to battle.

The Elias of my imagination would carry his sister on his back, would be adept with our axe to chop wood for the fire, would watch and imitate his father as he built dreams out of lumber, nails, and screws, would explore the woods and mountains and shores by our home on his own, climbing, paddling, hiking further and further each time.

You can see why I don't usually let myself go to this place of imagined alternate realities. The boy in these pictures is not the son born to me.

It does me no good to linger in a state of longing for something or someone else.  Elias can't be that kid; and for all I know that boy might have broken my heart in a thousand unknown ways anyways.

What if instead of holding his Mom's hand as we walked up the driveway, he refused to be seen by my side?  What if he took that s-curve too fast, lost control, donning only the invincibility of youth and he hit a tree head on?  I can hear him saying before the ride: "Mom I don't need to wear my ski helmet for sledding anymore, come on I'm almost 13!" 

So I let go of this mirage of a child I don't know.

All those "what if" questions a deep dark hole that once trapped inside, its hard to find footing, a handhold, to climb back out to the safety of what I know.

What is real. What is right before my eyes.

Picture this:

Elias sledding down the driveway on a purple plastic sled as his mom holds the rope from her matching sled, the two attached like a train, smiling, as he weaves back and forth behind her, until his sled turns backwards, and she lets go of his rope, and he lands in a ditch, lying on his side, laughing, in that full-body way of his that makes her laugh aloud every time.

Regardless of what happened the moment before.

Elias choosing the steeper path to climb up from Spruce Creek, undaunted by the rocks, the boulders, the milestones, in his way.

What is real. What is right before my eyes.

Comments

[Sara]

Ohhhh - I can so relate.

[Valerie Demming]

Yes, I hear you Christy...I love that sentence..."So I let go of this mirage of a child I don't know." so so good.

[Christy]

Thank you for not only understanding and getting it but encouraging me to keep on writing with your kind words. Writing for me is both therapeutic and social/community building when I get comments like yours:)