With Awe, Delight and Terror

Mornings are when I find out how I feel. I haven't used an alarm in a very long time. I wake up when the pain becomes greater than the tiredness. This morning I woke smiling in spite of the pain. I woke knowing my first interaction of the day would be with my child. He had gotten up when his Daddy Troy went to work (they were both loud enough that I heard them). So I came out to the living room to find a naked nearly-seven year old on my couch. I sat down in my favorite spot and he flowed into my lap without really waking. I covered him in a soft blanket.

I sit here in awe. He is beautiful. He was beautiful at 5 lbs. 9 oz and he awes me even more at 49 lbs. He is a long lithe muscular boy with an angel face and a devlish smirk. His intelligence, humor, generosity and sheer loving heart never cease to amaze me. It really feels that he is the best of all four of us embodied into one person. Yesterday we teased him about stealing Daddy Troy's smirk. His physicality has always been so clearly inherited from his Daddy Troy. His humor glints with that mysterious sparkle of Daddy Lon. His high energy and high idealism matches my own. His musical talent is a more confident echo of his other mother's. So many little things I couldn't name but notice in the small moments of our lives. His radiance fills me with warmth.

And then I realize it is Thursday. Only 48 hours left until the void will swallow him up again. He returns to a place he doesn't want to go and we don't want to send him. He leaves a large hole in my heart. Sometimes I think I will die just from the effort it takes to send him away again. How will I find the strength to do it again? How will I survive until June? My mind spins, racing around like an animal caught in a trap trying to find a way out. Five years of this. How do I do it? I don't know. Amazing what one can survive when you have no other options.

Snippets

So I ask Alura, "Is it my imagination, or am I calmer when Rowan is here?"
She gives me that "are you kidding" look that only a teenager can really master, and replies, "You are ALL soooo much calmer when he's here!"


Rowan wakes from is morning nap on the couch -- and what does he find? His head is in Mama Dawn's lap, his feet on Daddy Lon, both parents with laptops on and writing/reading live journal and email. He grins and asks like the child of four geeks that he is, if he can get on Daddy Troy's laptop? Now he plays a computer game (Dr. Brain) while Willow curls up in the laptop case. Life is good.