Last Night As A 10 Year Old

Sitting and chatting with mom…moments before the sun went down…on his last evening as a 10 year old. It went to fast. Those first ten years.

This is my old soul. My gentle boy. The one who is always ready for a hug and a cuddle. The one who tells the BEST jokes–his sense of humour is KILLER…and it is one of the things I am most proud of about him. He is smart and creative. He’s not a risk taker…but he LOVES to play paintball. His friends tell me that his Minecraft world is UNREAL. He is not just a deep thinker…he is the deepest thinker. Truly. And, being his mom is one of the greatest gifts the universe has sent my way. I know he will move mountains. I can’t wait to see which ones they are.

On this evening in 2002, I had already been in labour for days. It was an epic labour…one of those ones that no one believes you about. I was exhausted, but stubborn. I didn’t want a c-section. I knew that I could wait it out. I thought he would be a girl. A little girl we’d call Lillian. He’d be born on the 26th of the month…just like all the girls in my family. I finally relented and had an epidural so I could sleep. When I awoke, I looked at Bob and asked what time it was. He knew why I was asking. He knew I wanted a little girl so that I could gift my grandmother by naming our first child after her. One that would come so close to her 90th birthday. He looked at me and said 2:00am. I looked at him and said, ‘It’s a boy’…and I was right. He was born at the crack of dawn. I remember the light streaming into the birthing room as he made his entrance to the world. It was a day that lives so vividly in my mind. I loved him then, but now…now it is so much more.

See you in the morning son…you’ll be 11 when the dawn comes.

~ Dana