He is impish and clever. His energy has a keen zeal that runs with intentional starts and stops. His blue eyes see the world in hard lines and direct shapes. Even on crutches, he seeks to zip into your focus and steal your attention. His things are his things and that is all there is to that. He is the second, and last, but he wants you to see him first.

At night I read Bone with him, a long epic tale of dragons and dreaming; ghost circles and a locust spirit; of curious brothers who frustrate each other but won’t run to abandon. I cannot follow it because it holds no interior meaning for me, but for him it is real and powerful and I am glad I can give him that.

When no one answers the birthday invitations, he steels himself and his eyes look past it. But I know this is all a front and that the river inside runs deep and swift, strong, and that if I just look at it right, it will break through the banks and flow in tears down his cheeks.

I love this boy and his desire to control it all. I love him more than I can understand. And if i were a swimmer trying to find the bottom of it, I would be crushed under the watery weight of it before finding it (since there is none).

In him, I feel the echos of myself as I once was. But I also see him as he is.

Tomorrow he is 8.

I will remember the night he came into our world, delivered with gentleness and ease by a woman doctor who told me just to breathe. I will remember the joy and the sense of sharp focus he had immediately.

And I will celebrate all of this and the power he has over me to give him everything with just a smile.