This is What You're Made Of (Part 1)

And on nights when my head spins while I stab at sleep and the night's terrors remind me of tomorrow's hardships, I get up and stumble wearily through the thin and dark hallway. My hand crosses the beveled edges of frames on the portraits of your grandfathers and grandmothers, your cousins, uncles, and aunts. They are mostly the deceased, staring unknowingly and eternally back in freeze frames; they are like ghosts that give us glimpses into the past and into what we’re made of. I know someday I will be on this wall and your hand might trace the corners of my face or swim in my eyes. You might imagine running your fingers along my gruff, leathery chin, and you might wish, as I do now, that we had more time together. But the Lord gives and he takes, he blessed me with my son and now, as each moment in time becomes more and more precious, my body aches and yearns to lie down and never wake up. On this night, that is what I am most afraid of –to lie down and never wake up. And not from old age, we both know that many get at least forty more; at least I think you understand. So I stumble through the dark hallway and twist your cold door-handle until the cedar plank creaks open and a sliver of light drapes itself across the length of your bed and for a few golden seconds, I listen to you breathe. You inhale life and exhale beauty and I wonder if maybe I can do more than hear your sweet breath piercing the cold dark.

I cautiously push the door away from me and it only yields after a few loud and bellowing groans. You don't wake up but continue to sleep like an angel. And I stand on the threshold of your door thinking only of you. Your chest rises like a slumbering volcano and falls with deep puffs of warm air. Against your mother’s instructions, I see you left your Legos harmlessly scattered around your floor, interspersed with green army men whose bayonets are all bending in the wrong direction and one figure is apparently limping on only one leg. I tried washing the crayon out of the white walls, remnants of your youngest and most careless years, but white walls suddenly became less precious than remembrances.

I think about stepping into your tiny room and my foot freezes in midair. I feel out of place, like a geriatric walking through a park where children laugh and mud is smudged on their faces while they're licking the chocolate pudding from their fingers. I see mothers chasing after wayward kids and fathers throwing baseballs to pint-sized leather mitts. And I walk like a ghost amidst the flowers and trees that are blooming to life in something like an eternal springtime. I grab the ripest flower, whose color dances and blurs in the wind. The petals softly graze my nose and I'm wrapped in the soft blue fragrance. I see the flower inhaling every moment of life around it and I feel as if I have no right to touch this thing. Two children build a sandcastle near the lakeshore and another pedals with his father in a brightly colored paddleboat.

I see you, here in the park, and you are bursting with the season. And I see God, and I see you walking hand-in-hand with him. You jump from one of my footprints in the sand to the next. I see your soft blue-shirt blowing in the wind as the glorious sun guilds your hair in golden locks.

There is a pain in my side and I feel as if something is biting me. My hands clutch my stomach and I grimace, bracing against the shooting throbs of poignant and crippling torture. I'm thankful you sleep so soundly and I hobble away to the living room so that I don't needlessly frighten your mother.

Part 2