Pictures of You

Tradition dictates that my kids have to take a picture in front of my blue door on the first day of school every year. So, happy 2013-14!

Seventh grade means you need a hairSTYLE and not a hairCUT. Fifth grade means you make a deal to download an app on your Nabi if you let your hairgirl pick your haircut.

I felt more proud of these two short people on this particular morning than I ever have. More than watching baseball games or belt tests. More that witnessing extraordinary or every day kindness. More than report cards or responsibility. I am proud of them because they just are, because they grow. Because they smile when they have lots and lots of reasons not to. Because nothing, NOTHING, impedes their ability to experience excitement and joy.

 

Last year, we took this picture on the first day of school. I love looking at how much Jake's face has changed in twelve months, and how Landen is the most authentic person I've ever known and his face somehow tells you that. They grew a couple inches. Landen got more into sports and Jake got more into taekwondo (and girls). I wrote this post about what I was experiencing with my then-fourth grader and my then-sixth grader at the time.

 

What I also know from this picture is that I do not remember that day. I do not remember writing that post, my last for six months. Five days before this picture was taken, their dad moved out, though they would not find out about it for several weeks, thanks to the convenient arrival of a hurricane. I remember the year before (2011) clearly - getting them up and dressed, dropping them off, crying when they got out of the car because it was their first year at a new school and they were dripping with terror. But last year, I do not remember getting them up or getting them dressed, taking this picture, dropping them off. Crying was inevitable.

 

You know that feeling when your hand goes numb, and you hold it up or hold it down so that warmth and sensation can occur, then the tingling starts and the return of full feeling in a numb limb is euphoric to that entire side of the body? The mom holding the phone taking the picture in 2012 was numb, having been completely deprived of emotional or mental sensation and the ability to move. Walking prostrate.

 

(I have to give my mom credit for a big part of this morning, because she came on Monday and shopped, cooked, laundered, and erranded to get us ready to get up and out the door this morning.)

 

I was present for every minute of the morning today. When the boys came down in their new clothes and shoes, hands in pockets. When Cydney came through the door with donuts and my mom poured them coffee. When Landen fixed his own hair, but I had to do Jake's with gel, pomade and a hairdryer. When I told Landen how proud I was of everything about him, even the size of his eye booger, because we had made it a whole year, and he had kept going when he wondered whether I could, and he let me kiss him. When I told Jake how proud I was of him, for wanting to grow up, for not giving up on me, and that today was the first day of anything he wanted, and he teared up and hugged me. When we took the picture, got in the car and they chose "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Thrift Shop" as their riding music. When they got excited seeing all their teachers in the carpool line. And when they hopped out of the car too confident and excited to say "bye," and I cried leaving the parking lot.

I look at those pictures and I know that somewhere between them, the numbness ended, and the feeling returned. Yesterday, for the first time in 365 days, I felt joy. For the ability to be present in my life, and for the gift of two children who give me so much to witness. Our recovery is not over, but we did not wither and die. We did not stay stuck. We grew. We bloomed. Me because of them, and them because of me.