When You Came Along
By: Emma Poe
Tags: Motherhood, Relationships, Family, Mothers Day, Creative Non Fiction

When You Came Along

For My Son On Mother’s Day

I wanted you but didn’t expect you.

Nine months dragged, a constant trudge up a neverending steep peak. I wanted to stop. Just let me rest for a second, I can’t catch my breath.

And then you were here and I was dropped into a sharp, sudden abyss. Where was my mountain and why would I have ever thought of complaining?

When you came along, everyone ooohhhh and ahhhhed. Isn’t he beautiful? I couldn’t point out the contorted shape your face made when you screamed loudly into the night. Or the fear and loneliness I felt at two in the morning, when only the devils and monsters were awake. I think you were both of them combined.

I sometimes cried quietly in the gliding motion of our chair. Why did no one warn me? Not one word. How could my life disappear so rapidly? When we left the apartment that September night, I was carefree and light, despite the heaviness of your hidden body. We arrive home with the weight of a family wrapping around my neck and pulling me down.

When you came along, I didn’t realize I would melt at that first glimpse of a smile that only I saw. I didn’t understand how I could abruptly be willing to throw myself in front of a truck for you and yet, feel the boiling rage of a dragon stir when you screamed frantically at three in the morning.

Did I realize my intense hatred for playdoh before you came along? Hours and hours of playing with that unique smelling doughy substance. I worked tirelessly to make you the perfect alligator and felt the bright smile warm my tired body as you screamed happily and reached for him. Could it have really only taken twenty minutes for my beautiful alligator to become a formless gray clump of nothing?

I never knew you’d push me off center stage. It was no longer my show. I would even be skipped over for best-supporting actress and forced to stand behind the curtain. I could watch. Only watch. I did so by myself as you and your sister pranced and performed with your father close by, still the star of his own stage.

I stood alone.

When you came along, random vacations lost their meaning. There were spring breaks and summer vacations and Christmas time. How did I wind up in the Everglades on an airboat and why was it so beautiful to watch your face jump with happiness as the wind rushed through your hair? Late in the evening, you leaned into me as we watched High School Musical for the fifth time and everything was gentle and blue.

I never realized, when you came along, the sharp stab to the heart that came from the words I’d rather go with my friends. My solo performance on stage was being queued up and I didn’t want it anymore. I wanted to ask you to stay. I wanted to help you leave. I cried quietly in the night again, missing that soft-haired little boy who loved me most of all.

When you came along, I’d never thought you’d leave. I wanted you to, I needed you to. I wanted to beg you to stay forever. I didn’t want to be back on center stage. It’s all for you, my baby boy. I didn’t know those new questions would hurt, the inquiries of So, what are you going to do now? How could I say that I didn’t know, I wasn’t ready?

I want you to run out with your little sister in the soft silence of a Christmas Eve night to throw magical food for the reindeers. I want to hold your slick soft body that tries so hard to learn how to dog paddle and soothe you as you cry over the water that snuck up your nose. I want to laugh at your completely inappropriate fourteen-year-old jokes and smile at the hidden beer bottle I found in the garage.

When you came along, I didn’t realize that I was happier as a We until the moment the I knocked at my door.

And now I know that when you came along, magic became possible again and nothing was more beautiful than watching the world through your eyes.