I meant for the longest time to think about the little tasks, about tying the shoes, and fitting the hands into gloves, I saw my big hands negotiating the laces and trying sleeve after sleeve over finger and thumb.
I could have had fun with the sand I dumped out of each sneaker, enough for a beach, enough for a castle and a moat.
I could have written about the look on their faces sometimes, that they saw us not as the oafs who yelled and sighed and lived stupidly above eye level, but shining gods, shining, omnipotent and perfect.
How when they cried in your arms they were praying to you to make it better, to lift the pain from their lives, and you could.
I could have written about the tiredness of the house, the exhaustion of the tabletops, crusted with crud, sponged pointlessly after meals, the flakes and globs spattered on the floor that fill the cracks in the hardwood.
Or the handles on the stroller that were not long enough, so you walked in a crouch, and the white plastic wheels that turned sideways on a whim or a pebble and skidded to a halt.
I could have remembered their bodies between us in bed when they were just babies, the smell of them there, the cramped caution of the dark, the wet exhalation from their noses. The kick of them against blanket, that wakes you and momentarily annoys you, then draws you even closer.
Why did they finally leave our bed, our big pink comforter and the warmth of the family, for beds of their own? There was space for us all, and another night would have cost them nothing, but they went.
I could have described the last night they woke up frightened and sauntered in barefoot and climbed in between us. They slept again immediately, and we tried, too.
But I know you were thinking, off on your side, that this is the moment, and this was our life, and the white skin of our children dove and fell again beside us, in the bright sun setting, out to sea.
December, 1996
