Sacred

My son is wispy. Or at least, that’s the best way I can think to describe him. It’s as if some one had grabbed a hold of his pudgy infancy cheeks and never let go. He is all arms and legs now with a miniature torso.

I was much different at that age. The summer before starting high school. My mom had just remarried and we moved to the rival school district in an adjacent town. I was flabby and awkward. Even at that age. It was the beginning of my consciousness as an adult.

Like my son, I remember being lackadaisical. Sleeping late. Eating poorly. Watching too much television (phone). But maybe that’s where the similarity ends. While I was somber and dour, he is much quicker with a mischievous grin. My fingers thumbed through books while his manipulate the intricate sub parts of electronics. I reached out yearningly for companionship and often felt spurned, he is happiest twiddling away on his own. Deeply engaged in one self imposed project or another.

I have changed much since those years. My hair has thinned and become almost non existent. My skin shows the haughty imperfections of the decades past. The fat in my jowls has disappeared and my cheeks have hallowed. Maybe in that, my son and I have become more alike.

Age has not been unkind, but it has been relentless. Staring lostly towards my offspring, I wonder if there in lies a kernel of immortality. A small piece of myself passed through the ages. Father to son to grandson and so on. For generation upon generation, some part of my being will persist long after this feeble body succumbs.

It’s a gratifying thought.

Perhaps some day, far in the future, a member of my blood line will come across my name among the branching tree of filial relationships recorded in a random forgotten ledger. There may be a footnote. A bookmark to some worthwhile accomplishment or another. Probably rather unremarkable.

A few words to summate a life lived in countless arbitrary moments. Somewhere buried amongst the banal.

Waiting in the checkout line at the supermarket. Idling in the car as my daughter finishes track practice. Scrolling through my timeline as the television blares in the background.

My wispy son grows before my eyes. Flashes a toothy grin. And then disappears alone on his way out the door into a frightening world full of opportunities, hope, and heartbreak.

And I hold these moments sacred.