25 years

2003-07-25 - 1:01 p.m.

I am five (and three quarters!) years old, standing at our Grandparents' dining room table, heavy, dark wood. I am waiting impatiently, get jumpy whenever the phone rings. Mostly, I am agitated that the grown-ups won't let me go along to the hospital to see the brand-new tiny you.

I am seven years old and get to help feed you. We make a mess and smile a lot. Some patterns we started early.

I am eight years old and you brush my hair. I close my eyes and hold back any flinching because you're trying so hard to brush it gently. You take a phrase from a commercial as your own, and run through the house calling "Slim and sexy! Slim and sexy!" You call everyone a pickle when we're being silly, which is often.

I am nine years old and we sit on the edge of the pool, the cement pilling the bottoms of our suits. We play with buckets, a watering can, and a little machine that you pour water into to watch it trickle down drain paths, spinning wheels and flipping levers as it drains out.

I am ten years old and we are dressed in matching winter coats, the three of us. Pale pink and purple.

I am twelve and you have taken up residence working at a small table set up next to Grandad's desk. You've arranged it with office supplies you love at least as much as the dolls around it. Still, I can't imagine you growing into a desk-job.

There are gaps here and there where grown-up problems get in the way of watching you. I missed too much.

For brevity, fast forward to a teenaged you. Your mother pulling me aside to open my hands as a backup to catch you should you fall stops me in my tracks, fills me with pause, honor and a reason to try to keep growing up.

I am twenty-three and wonder how you find the strength and the beauty and gentleness and wish only that you hadn't had to.

I am twenty-six, restless, alone and ready to take flight. In one call, you not only keep me home, but help me to build one.

I am twenty-seven and twenty-eight and we let each other keep each other together. I watch you buy your first business suit and achieve your goals and discover how to find what you want.

I am thirty and watch you find peace in love. Now I have only geography to blame for getting in the way.

And I never stopped being amazed.

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Pretend it's 10th grade. Leave me a note.

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