I was thinking to myself earlier today, and I took my own breath away. I started asking you in my head what you wanted me to tell you about. I whispered out loud 'What do you want mama to tell you, Frost?" Nobody else heard me, I was away from them. I knew this, so I asked you again. Words kept creeping out of me. Soft squeaks, sounds unaccustomed to air. I let the weight of the words pull my head down. Nobody saw me. I looked at what my hands were doing. Making cookies. I shattered at the thought that you would never know cookies. I took myself away from them. I watched the corner for something so plain that I would not be saddened by the fact that you would never see it. The stained plastic bucket, the stained plastic wall, the broken tile. You wouldn't have become a great man through the influence of these things. I settled my eyes on them, and their lack of beauty settled my heartbeat.
But what if the the bucket had been a beautifully crafted basket, twined by a Hopi woman long ago? What if the wall had been a lost fresco from Pompeii? And the broken tile, one of Byzantine splendor? What then, Frost? You missed my day today, my slow world, my plain world. Even though my life is not exciting, I would have loved to have seen the exaltation in your face the first time you ever had a cookie. Those are the days that real lives are made for.
It wasn't until later that I tried to share this part of my day with one other. I gave hints and the wrong questions were asked. So the time stayed between me and you. I have to remember this.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you.
So beautiful.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it is the little things that our children will never know that . . shatter. You have hit on precisely the right word.
I even feel sad that she will never know my own slow, plain world as it was all I had to offer. And I don't really know what the alternative might be.
I hope you found some comfort in this exchange between you and Frost. x