The Gift of a Glimpse

The Gift of a Glimpse

“What ya got there?”

“Somethingggggg,” his small lips puckered before wobbling into a silly grin.

     Young sapphire eyes sparkled with anticipation as my son anxiously waited to reveal the surprise clutched behind his back. My husband smiled, his lithe frame propped casually against the fridge. Blond hair, still damp from a shower, framed his tanned face. A rush of hopelessly tender sensations washed over me triggered by the sight of him.

“Mark, are you ready to give Mommy her present?

     My four-year-old hopped from foot to foot. I resisted an urge to smooth back the light brown hair flopping onto his forehead and brush my thumbs across the rose-tinted flush brushing the tops of his rounded cheeks.

 Thrusting his arms forward, he giggled in his little boy way, “These are for you!”

    Bent daylily stems poked out from the side of a chubby fist. The yellow buttercups had managed to survive intact, casting their dewy golden haze over my white blouse when I leaned over to inhale their fragrance. Earlier, I had peeked covertly out the kitchen window and chuckled as my little man ran like a mad man around the backyard garden, pointing to only the prettiest and most perfect of the blooms before barking orders to his father on which of them he wanted cut.

In my son’s other hand, wrapped in a style I recognized as my husband’s handiwork, he clutched a small gift.

“Careful, it could break,” Mark warned before adding, “I made this all by myself at school and Miss Kelly helped me some.”

    I reached for the flowers and slipped them into the clear vase I kept on the counter. Mark’s small shoulders hunched, watching as the water trickled from the faucet into the glass cylinder, his attention shifting back to the small package.

Exasperated, he squealed, “Hurry, Mom, and open it!”

    His father chuckled as I carefully unwrapped the square. Inside was a photo edged in Popsicle sticks, specks of glitter suspended in clumps of dried glue embellishing the simple frame. In the photo Mark held a sign. Each letter was a different color, the outlines printed in the same puffy font I recognized from Miss Kelly’s whimsical bulletin boards.

“Awe, how sweet,” I read the message, “Happy Birthday to the Greatest Mom Ever!” The manila paper blocked his face from the nose down, but his smile shone through the crinkles radiating from the corners of his eyes.

“Look,” he pointed to the fluffy pom-poms stuck here and there, “I did crafts for you.”

Pride blazed from his baby blues as he waited on tender hooks for my reaction.

“I do believe,” noting the little wobble in my voice, “that this is the best present I have ever gotten. Thank you, baby, I will keep this forever.”

    He rushed into my arms, allowing me to plaster him with a multitude of kisses. Now that he was a big boy, such shows of affection were still permissible on special occasions, or when a mother’s hug was needed to keep life’s rougher moments at bay.

    The glow on his face remained long after the last slice of ice cream cake had melted into a milky puddle. His aunts and grandma guffawed loudly as my child greedily licked the sprinkles off the cardboard, their amusement shifting quickly to a holler of pain when the same child crawled under the long folding table, his bony knees digging into their stockinged feet.  Shouts and jeers interrupted from the family room as his uncles drank beer and argued about which football teams would go all the way once the season finally got underway.

    We laughed and gossiped.  Mark, forgiven for the injuries inflicted upon his guests’ toes, crawled from one lap to another clutching his favorite Hot Wheels car in one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. I took in the balloon-print paper tablecloth, the rich scent of dark-roasted beans percolating in the forty-cup metal pot, the scraps of wrapping paper that missed the plastic bag and floated to land beneath our folding chairs. My eyes roamed over the faces of the people I loved, willing it to memory and locking it in time before locking onto my husband, always behind the movie camera.

“You don’t have to record every minute, you know,” I scolded gently. Knowing myself, I would later watch the video, zooming in and obsessing over the extra roll, or two, around my middle that always seemed to appear out of nowhere. Yet the camera didn’t lie.

“Relax, it’s a family movie. One day when I’m dead and gone,” he teased, “You’ll watch this and realize just how fortunate you were to get such an exceptional man who really knows how to throw a party.”

“Oh please,” my sister-in-law Gayle rolled her eyes, “I’d rather not to see the rainbow frosting I’m still digesting return for us all to see.”

He threw his sister a playful sneer that shifted into a soft smile as he refocused his attention to me and our child, now peacefully passed out against my chest.

A family birthday party. One of many. So ordinary. In retrospect, so extraordinary.

    He had been right.  Then it occurred to me that I wasn’t just watching the familiar scene, somehow I was reliving it.

    The pressure on my temples lifted as Mark removed the sleek metalic visor from my head. His crinkles had deepened into crows’ feet, and when he smiled, fine lines wove like netting across the thin skin of his cheekbones.

    I gazed at him in wonder, the little boy that longed for his mother’s praise waited patiently before me, housed in a middle-aged body. My chest tightened with the understanding of how much time actually had passed.

 “Thank you, baby. This was the best present I have ever gotten. I wish I could keep it forever.”

My vision blurred and watered; the recollection threatening to evaporate before I was ready to let it go.

 “Your Aunt Gayle is the only one left. Sometimes, I think, I don’t know her anymore,” I twisted in my wheelchair at the confession, absently running my thumb along the darkened wooden stick frame resting on the nightstand. Fuzzy rings of dried glue poked out from where pom-poms once clung, “To see them again…,” I sniffed back a tear as my mind drifted, “I’d forgotten how handsome your father was. How sweet you were.”

   The lingering image of my child’s features superimposed over the aging face before me. Like wisps of a dream, the recollection thinned, seeking a crack through which it could slither into the thickening fog frequently collected in the hollows of my mind. I struggled to hang on to his gift, this precious glimpse of who we were, for as long as I could. A sadness washed over me as the cherished moment in time began to slip from consciousness, taking with it the scent of strong coffee and fragrant blooms as it returned to rejoin the other memories now walled off and inaccessible.

    I stared at the man before me. Pride blazed from his eyes although I didn’t know why, his irises no longer brilliant but faded to a softer hue. It didn’t matter. I sensed he loved me. Somehow, I knew he would look after me.

∞

 “Was it like you remembered?” I asked my mother, “I scanned and downloaded an old movie reel I found in your photo box and applied a new enhancement program Alex taught me. It converts two-dimensional film into a realistic three-dimensional virtual experience, sparking buried…”  

    Her facial muscles slackened and drooped as her pupils lost focus and grew distant. I scratched at my chin, doubt wrapping its’ uncomfortable weight around my conscience. Perhaps I should have left well enough alone. Too often, I didn’t know if my good intentions brought joy or sorrow and she was not one to say.

“Mom?” I tried to pull her back from her own thoughts and lighten the mood, “do you remember Alex? He told me he misses his Grandma. He hopes to visit next month when he gets back from college.”

“Alex?” I watched her eyes seeking clues from the photo board on the wall across from us, “that would be nice.”

Her response was appropriate, though her voice lacked any true recognition.

    A twinge of distress poked at my gut and I recognized it as the ache of loss.  Inhaling deeply, I reminded myself that this was out of my control. As much as I wished for the mother I’d grown up with to come back, it really wasn’t about me. For her, happiness was in the moment. I just needed to be in the moment with her.

We sighed in unison.

 Then her hand, the skin as fragile and transparent as an onion skin, reached up to pat my cheek, just like she used to.