I cried the other night. That’s nothing especially out of the
ordinary. I cry a lot. But just over a week ago was a bit special. My
anniversary of adding yet another burden to an overpopulated planet that
urgently needs a Malthusian style cull in order to maintain the fragility of
life and ecosystems in order to survive, still less to thrive. Or, to put it
slightly more cheerily, it was The Boy’s 13th birthday.
My Precious First Born is now a teenager. I can’t pretend I
wasn’t listening, head tilted and ear cocked as 06:59 ticked over to 07:00 to
see if The Curse of Kevin would kick in and my golden-fluffy haired moppet
would suddenly transform into a lank, greasy, groaning pile of BO, acne, and
hormones, swearing and seemingly having no control over how his arms swung. The
Fear was real indeed.
In the event, the minute passed without incident, other than
realising that for the first time ever in his life he’d set an alarm on his
phone to make sure he was awake for the
momentous notification that he’d officially passed from childhood to the
terrible teens. Also, for the first time since he started school, a weekday
morning saw him sitting up in bed when I went in to his room.
Beautiful Boy. Far more beautiful now that he ever was as a
baby, although of course to me he was the cause of infinite gaze, admiring the delicate
perfection of his every millimetre. Growing more beautiful by the day, seeing
those features, so dear to me, develop and unfurl as he’s grown. That face,
those eyes, those hands that have held mine, those feet that have walked beside
mine for so long, and are bigger than mine now. The reassuring, solid comfort
of his hugs, the way he still leans his head against my arm for comfort. I’m
not sure how much longer that can last for now, because he’s barely an inch
shorter than me. So for now that’s still something to treasure, as long it is
there, as long as it’s a reminder that he’s my boy.
A lifetime ago, or so it seems, I wrote about him growing
up, and growing away from me. That was my fear. That he would slip through my
fingers and I wouldn’t be able to hold onto him, that I would lose him as he
flourished. It seems odd to remember
that now. Because that’s not how it’s happened. Even allowing for the upheaval
and changes in our lives, that’s not how things have become. It could so easily have been the case, it
would have been so easy to make different decisions that placed barriers
between us and meant that I didn’t spend the first ten minutes of his 13th
birthday giggling and cuddling, and the two of us sharing silly memories and
words of happiness.
It was a moment, just a moment, the same as millions of
moments that we have shared between us since the first time I saw his face. The
same as the moments when I’ve shouted, or he had a tantrum, or I changed his nappy,
or cooked a dinner he didn’t like, or walked him to school, or read him a
story, or made him groan with a terrible joke, or told him off, or cried with
pride over him, or had to listen in excruciating detail to something about
Pokemon. It was just another moment in the journey from infant to adult, with
me as a witness to his every triumph and disaster, every failure and
accomplishment. But those moments count, because each and every one adds up to
a life. A life I am privileged to share and know.
And he hasn’t changed, not really. He is still that same
affectionate, loving, considerate, honest, tactile and thoughtful little person
I remember from the lunchtime he asked ‘Why doesn’t Mummy fucking need this at
the moment?’ I have no doubt that the next few years will be more trying than
those than preceded them. But those times too will eventually be no more than
moments either.
And that is why I cried, then (bit choked right now, tbh).
All of those moments, hard, difficult, fun, loving, all of those moments brought me to the point where I looked
through his bedroom door to see him, my newly teenaged son sleeping as he always
has, in a state of utter abandonment, arms above his head, and I had my own
moment, like a slideshow on fast forward, seeing all of those moments together
condensed, concentrated, compacted, all of those precious, countless, forgotten
but unforgettable moments that have now added up to teenage years. Seeing it
all unfiltered, that life I could not be without, and those moments that have
made it this way.
Happy birthday for the other day, my beautiful boy. You are
what keeps me honest, because you don’t know any other way to be. You make me
brave, because you always are, and you never pretend not to be scared. You
remind me to be kind, because that’s all you know. You never hurt, because I
love you. You make me laugh, you make me proud, you make me cry, because I am
an embarrassing mum who threatens you with public displays of affection. I
could not ask for any more from you than just years more of moments together.
You and me, Bee. I’ve
learnt more from you than I could ever teach you. Happy Bee Day – you brightened
my northern sky more than I could ever have known, and you make me want to be
the best I can, for you. I love you OBeeWanWookieBee. You are, and always have
been, as everyone tells me ‘such a lovely boy, he really is’. Please don’t turn into a little
shit now though. Fingertips, matey boy. Fingertips, always xx
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