Holding on to him tight

A year ago today, I was given a perfect little spirit in a perfect little body. When I held Jack for the first time, my heart almost burst with so much joy and love and purpose. The financial and graduate school stresses that seemed to completely overwhelm me just the day before didn't seem to matter anymore, because my son was here and he was mine and what else mattered?

As I welcomed my son into the world, my mom prepared to send her first son out into the world. James left for his mission a month and a half after Jack was born. During this time, my mom often called to check up on me and Jack. At the end of almost every phone call she would jokingly and sometimes seriously say, "Start preparing to say goodbye to Jack now! It goes by so fast! Sending James off is torture!"

In a birthday letter to James earlier this month she wrote:

Twenty years ago, I walked laps around our neighborhood in Pleasant Hill hoping to hasten your already overdue arrival. There was no way I could have predicted that twenty years later you would be walking the streets of Orizaba, Mexico, sharing the gospel in a foreign land. It is something a mother dreams about, but there are too many years ahead to picture all of the particulars. I didn't know then that the years were actually just seconds that would pass before you would be leaving our home to serve as a representative of Christ. When I look at baby Jack, I want to say to Annie, "Hold on to him tight! Savor every minute. You will have to let him go sooner than you think!" 

I remember rocking you to sleep in the middle of the night once in our Melody Lane house when you were probably two. I had rocked you many times before in that exact same uncomfortable rocking chair, praying that you would go to sleep, but this particular time was different. I felt impressed to remember that exact moment in time because I would miss it. In my mind I heard, "Hold on to him tight! Savor every minute. You will have to let him go sooner than you think." Since then I have realized what a strange thing time is. One moment time is fleeting, and another it trudges. How could ten months of your mission fly by so quickly and at times seem like an eternity?

Regardless, thank you for teaching me over twenty years that indeed "every day is my lucky day" because you are my son and I am your mom, whether near or far. I love you to the moon (Orizaba) and back, and I can hear you say, "I love you more than a thousand miles!"

With all my love,

Mom

So today on Jack's birthday, I am grateful that he's not twenty or twelve or five or two. I am so grateful he's just one. I'm grateful that I can smother him in kisses, comfort him when he cries, and count his steady breaths when he sleeps. I'm grateful that he clings to me, laughs at me, and depends on me. I'm grateful for our long simple days together. I'm grateful I can hold on to him tight and savor every minute with him, because I'm going to have to let him go sooner than I think.