Will My Son Be Okay After I Die?

“Mommy, I need you.”  I walk to the couch, lean down, place my hand on his cheek, and kiss my son’s head. His hair smells like the playground – dirt and mulch and little-boy sweat that isn’t yet drenched in testosterone. Stinky, but in an innocent way. A little-boy way.

“What’s up, baby?” I said.

“I need you to help me play this game. Daddy doesn’t know how,” he said, holding up his Darth Vader flashlight. 

I think about our games, and about how Daddy is rarely home, and I want to play but I don’t. I think about the future.

Will My Special Needs Son Be Okay After I Die?

I look back to this morning and how we played my son’s made-up game for too long and not long enough. There were boxes and a Taekwondo belt on the floor. His made-up rules included nine stages of defeat using weapons made from pool noodles, pillows, and a Minecraft sword. The boxes and belt had electricity in them and we had to jump over them this-high. Or, well, I had to jump over them this-high because he ate a magic potion in secret and was immune to electric shock.

It was fun, for a minute. It was exhausting.

Tonight, I look at him on the couch and say “Mommy’s busy, but you can teach Daddy to play. It’s his turn, anyways.”

I tell my husband that our son needs a bath. Thursday nights are when we’ve agreed that I get to write before 10pm and I want to walk away.

I feel awful for it. I feel like it’s my turn, too. I walk downstairs, drawn to my keyboard. I hear my little boy do his elephant stomps above my head and hope my husband gets how to play this awesome and totally boring game.

I think to the future and wonder whether my son will be okay after I die. 

The faces on the bathroom wall laugh and I walk back upstairs, and kiss my son again. The words “Mommy’s busy” pinball in my brain and my heart along with the others that say “You’re busy too often,” and “One day, you’ll miss this.”

I wonder whether my special needs son will be okay after I die. 

I look to the future and wonder whether my son will remember that I was too busy tonight to play again or whether he’ll remember that I went downstairs and Daddy played. I vote that he remembers Daddy played.

I climb into Marty McFly and Doc Brown’s DeLorean from Back to the Future and decide where to go.

I visit high-school me, and tell her that while grades matter, they don’t matter. That while boys matter, they don’t. I’d tell her that she’s fine even when she feels as if she’s not, and that she’s perfect, flawed and her. That she’s less unique than she thinks she is, and that one day, she will want to change the world in a way that she cannot imagine today.

I’d visit six-year-old me and tell her to proudly display that test.

I’d visit the me that stared at the flecks in her eyes while blowing bubbles in the mirror.

But mostly, if I could borrow Marty McFly and Doc Brown’s DeLorean from the movie Back to the Future, I’d travel in time to 50 years from now.

I’ll be closer to 100 years old than I am to the papery-eyed me of today. Really, I’d just want to make sure that my little boy who has developmental delays is okay.

I’d want to meet his children, if he has them, and I’d want them to gather by my feet while I tell them stories about their daddy when he was young. How once, he said “ninee” for airplane, and how we wondered whether he’d ever talk.

I’d share jumping up and down over him swearing because it’s talking. 

I’d hush my grandchildren, and find my son helping his spouse in the kitchen.

I’d pull him aside, and tell him that having him has made me better and made the world better.

I’d tell him – whether he’s herding carts at Home Depot or an App developer, that I am proud and blessed to be his mother.

I’d tell him that my life mattered mattered because of him, that he’s changed my world, and that he can change everybody’s, if he decides to. That it’s okay to not to decide to do that as well.

I just want my son to be okay after I die. 

***
This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. This week’s sentence is “Marty McFly and Doc Brown’s DeLorean are giving me a ride and we’re traveling to the date…”

If you’re young, or under a rock, or haven’t seen Back to the Future, feel free to use something like “If I could travel in time…”

Hosts:
Me, as always Kristi from https://www.findingninee.com