I've stopped and started this post a dozen times. I'll blame that partly on the demands of a newborn but the truth is writing about my son has felt very heavy. Heavy in the sense that there's too much carried to lift any one brick for evaluation. The breadth and depth of motherhood (not to mention experiencing motherhood in the context of a pandemic) has swallowed me, made words float far away on a surface I can see but not quite touch. Even my prayers have been stunted, short and desperate (help him grow! protect him! help me!), pleas have been all I could muster under the twin burdens of terror and euphoria.
While pregnant with Truman, even after he started routinely kicking me in the ribs, his existence seemed tenuous, like any morning I might wake up and it would have all been a dream. With each week I allowed myself an incremental addition of joy, knowing I was closer to feeling him in my arms. But even at the hospital, pacing and wincing and generally terrifying my husband, Truman still felt like a cloud of hope, a puff of smoke that a stiff breeze could dissolve. He didn't feel solid until he was placed on my chest after surgery. I couldn't lift my arms on my own and the combination of drugs and hormones made me shiver violently, my teeth chattering as Chester and the nurse helped me hold him. He was warm and sleepy, exhausted by his ordeal, and the first sensation I felt as I regained feeling in my arms was his tiny, wet breath. He was here and real.
Today brought the first breaths of autumn, a brisk wind racing between sunbeams, and as we sat outside Truman would inhale sharply, then smile, when the wind rustled his hair. I have never felt more firmly tethered to a place than I did in that moment, watching my son feel his first windy day, my feet in the grass of our backyard, my fingers smoothing the edge of his blanket. We exist together, my son and I, his father beside us. Our hearts beat and we feel the wind blow and we watch the leaves make shadows. He is here and real, and I get to love him for the rest of my life.
