All That Matters

“Our four selections in this issue feature tight writing, universal truths, emotional resonance. We love them all.

That said, our Flash CNF Editor’s Pick for Issue 21 is from Christy Tending. Christy’s piece “All That Matters” is timely, sharing a truth that many will (unfortunately) relate to in today’s world. When I got to the part about the bento box, I felt her son’s excitement—his innocence—and I teared up. See if you agree.”

— Ann Kathryn Kelly, Flash CNF Editor

Today, my son wears his motorcycle tee shirt to school with teal pants and a blue backpack with cars and trucks all over it and red socks with flamingos. Standing at the counter, I carefully pack his lunch bag. The one with mermaids, so he and his best friend can have matching lunch bags. I velcro his brown shoes extra tight, I adjust his green mask. I pinch it to his nose and squinch my face and we both laugh. I smooth his hair with its perfect and plentiful cowlicks, and he bats my hand away. I would pull him back inside my skin if I could.

I memorize this in case I need to tell you later.

Like I’ve memorized his laugh and the way his hair smells when he’s still dreamy and sticky from a nap. Like I’ve memorized a thousand things: his hand in mine and the cowrie shell curve of his ear. The weight of his body against mine when it’s windy like it was this morning and his muscles tense against it and the little sound he makes to ward off the chill. The way he holds his stuffed fox to his face when he sleeps. The way you need to hold a washcloth over his eyes when you wash his hair.

Do you understand? They won’t be able to ask me about those things, so I have to memorize his motorcycle tee shirt.

He probably wanted the one with the bulldozer, but it was in the laundry. This is what we do to pretend things are normal, to build a façade of okay-ness. We do the laundry, we eat oatmeal for breakfast, we pack lunches and make lists and smooth cowlicks and buy soap. We celebrate birthdays with little red velvet cupcakes and trips to the museum. I nurse sick-days with blue Pedialyte and penguin videos and a new coloring book.

I do all the things I was told. We pretend everything is promised.

Inside the mermaid lunch bag is his bento box. He would want me to tell you what’s inside today. Leftover sweet potato fries and rice and paneer and watermelon for dessert, and his favorite spoon, and his brand new fire truck water bottle. I cradle the bento with his favorite orange cloth napkin.

 

Every parent at school drop-off is hollow-eyed, every hug a bit too long, and our babies squirm out of our arms and into their classrooms where, my son tells me, he will be working on his letters today with his little chalkboard. Before he goes, I hug him and tell him I love him with my whole heart. I will be there to pick him up. I will be there.

I promised him that after school today he can eat his snacks in the car and that we’ll take the car to the drive-through car wash. So, I pack the snacks and tuck them into my bag and he shrieks with delight as we drive through it. He loves the way the automatic tracks pull the car along, the way the water splashes the car like a drumbeat, but somehow we never get wet. This weekend, he wants to go to the station and sit and watch the trains. These are the promises he asks me to make, and I make them readily, happily. He cannot fathom what other promises could be better than this. What could be better than keeping a promise to your child?

But not simple, you see?

There are machinations in the world grinding against my promise-keeping that haunt my dreams. How precarious it all is: my promises and his tiny body. I am holding it together with both hands and most of my teeth, willing it to last.

There are promises—ones he cannot imagine. He cannot imagine the fear in what I cannot guarantee. I spent so long wishing him into the world, sharing my body, helping him open his eyes. Teaching him how to eat and dress himself and write his name. I have given over years to the kindness of ritual: the certainty of bedtime and the ease of each morning, following the same structure. My only goal is to become what I avoided for so long: safe and predictable and soft and cheerful and steadfast. I repeat myself. I beg him to brush his teeth.

One day, it will annoy or embarrass him that I say the same things over and over again. He will roll his eyes and sigh dramatically, and I will know I have been a mother because he will be able to recite my own love back to me. I love you with my whole heart. You are so important to me. I hope you have an amazing day. What was the most fun part of school? I hope you have sweet dreams.

I hope. I love. He does not see that I also rage and mourn and bargain and beg and twist my shirt in the school parking lot. I hold my face in my hands. I hold his heart in my memory, the first patter of knowing him.

I have been unwavering, but to what end?

So, I pack his lunch and straighten my face when he asks, “What’s wrong, mama?” and camouflage my fear behind affection. I sit on the floor playing magnatiles, pretending I am not watching his face, memorizing his expressions, falling in love with the way his eyebrows furrow and the corner of his mouth moves.

I cannot tell him what I fear.

So, I do his laundry and hang his fire truck shirt in his closet and make his bed and hold his hand when we cross the street and bring the right snacks and remember sunscreen and make doctors’ appointments and dutifully attend parent-teacher conferences. I pack his lunch box with his favorite things, holding a stone in my throat, as though packing his lunch with all his favorite things will matter.

Because, it does matter.

Photo by Anslee Wolfe.