~:: Perpetual Motion ::~

Once again, M is gone.  This time for 5 months.  But at least, in the states.  We took him to the airport this morning—G, Laura and I—through fog, over ice.  Got there in good time.  And after he had gone through security and had re-gathered up shoes and jacket and luggage, we strained and peered, watching as he went up the far-away escalator to the gates.  I thought finally that he had disappeared, but no – there he was, hardly more than a speck up there on the causeway, scrunching way down to look for us—if we were, indeed  still down here, not gone off home ourselves.

He saw me seeing him, and brightened.  We waved crazily and blew kisses.  To the last possible moment, he had remembered we were there.  And then he was gone for real.

To understand this, you have to take a long look at your baby.  Then picture him a man—a man off on his way to a life’s dream adventure. Going away. And you are left on the shore.  The best you can do when that time comes is smile and wave and blow him just one more kiss.

Oh, how do we bear it?

I don’t have a picture of last night, but I want so badly to remember it.  Our little family launch party for M—sandwiches around the dining room table.  Scooter, sitting light and upright in my lap with his ski hat over that downy hair.  Andy, inoculation-sore, pink and round and a little cranky.  Most of Christmas put away, but bright boxes of chocolate still on the table, gleaming green and red.  And the little strings of lights still up (because I refuse to douse them until the day after dark January), bright in the windows, bouncing from window to window in clear reflection till all the windows blaze with points of color as though they were each filled to the brim with the lights.

And the faces of my children and husband, just as bright.  Lacking only Gin’s branch, but enriched by Laura’s smile and humor – all of us around the table, eating exotic and useless chips and submarine sandwiches.

It was like every one of us, every thing on the table or in the hutch—as if every thing was hung with lights, joyful and gleaming with warmth and humor and the brilliance of love.

Scooter and I both sat very still.  And watched.  Me, the family.  Scooter, the very last chip sitting on my plate.

Now the house is silent.  Even the pups are asleep. I weigh a million pounds.  Maybe I’ll sleep for three days.  Maybe.