Telescope. Microscope. Moon.

Happy 13th Birthday

As I start my van this morning, The Waterboys “The Whole of the Moon,” floods the speakers. He looks at me, dimple catching the light, eyes sparkling, and launches into the lyrics with me, lungs open, windows cracked.

“I pictured a rainbow
You held it in your hands,”

For thirteen years, this morning, nearly every morning, I’ve woke to his cries or his laughter, his voice in my ears. It’s happened, this morning, I am caught up in the great race of his childhood. How are we thirteen?

“You stretched for the stars
And you know how it feels
To reach too high

Too far too soon
You saw the whole of the moon”

He tells me he has goals for this year, his fourteenth. “I’d like to get in better shape. But more, I think, I’d like to work on my outward kindness. Sometimes I don’t have patience when people need something little. Like, one time, this kid at school wanted me to play rock paper scissors with him and I said no but for no reason. And if that would have brought him joy and brought me nothing hard, why shouldn’t I?”

“It’s okay to sometimes not give and give.”