Today is my youngest sons’ Birthday! My gosh… time DOES NOT fly! Thank the heavens. - I can still remember him as a little boy…but it was such a long, long time ago. I miss my baby boy. He is now so grown up. A man, on his own. An attorney. Married. Making a family in a state far away. Making a life, a living like a man does with his wife… on his plan, in his way. His road. - I can’t even tell him anything. Nothing. He doesn’t listen to me at all anymore. Not like he once did when he was a little guy. I was his rock. He would say, “Daddy, look at me!” “You be careful, now. Don’t go too high!” He’d swing so high on his own… ”Okay daddy!” And he’d go higher. - He could climb like a goat. No, a monkey! In fact his grandmother gave him his first baby ndn name as a toddler cause he climbed anything, everything! – “Little goat’ - we were at Mt Scott… I turn my head, he was gone! Wait… “Where are you!?” “Catch me daddy!” 22 months old and he was all the way up on a giant rock boulder, I couldn’t climb it! How? Little goat, indeed. That was the day. My momma started calling him it. I called him “My monkey.” I hadn’t even turned all the way around and here he came… like a flying squirrel! “Catch me dadddddyyyy! Yyay-hahaaa!” He almost went over my head. I was 6’6” then and I had to jump up and grab his leg and pull him out of the sky. Drag him down out of the clouds and into my shoulder; pull him to my safe keeping, into my arms. Cradle him, almost scold him but instead laugh and cuddle him and tell him he was a stinker and “How did you get up there?” - “I climbs!” - I caught him and cradled him. Kissed him all over and told him I loved him. That was what I was for. That was my job. - “Put me down daddy…put me down!” him laughing and squealing, “Again, daddy! Again!” No, not again. “You stay on the ground. NO climbing!” I’m your rock. I’m your cloud. You’re sky. You’re safe with me. Don’t you forget it. - He is having a birth day without me. His rock. For a long, long time now he has had a birth day without me. Don’t he know I miss him? But then don’t kids know they’re our rock? - My boy, my son is 33 today. He is my Pony… my Palmer. - Palmer Arrowsmith D’zurella, Esq. - Little Goat - My monkey - My baby. My own. My soul. - My Pony - He never crawled. Stood on all fours and walked like a spider. My momma said that is how I crawled, on all fours – like a spider. He spider crawled at 6 months walked at 9. All my babies did, walked at 9 months. And flew like a flying squirrel at 22 months, or, like a spider monkey. He doesn’t like that I call him “my baby” still… but that is what he is. - And it is his birthday. He is a 33 year old man now. Looks like a man. Walks like a man. Acts like a man. Works like a man. Is a man. I couldn’t catch him if he hollered, “Catch me daddy!” But I’d try. - ‘Cause, he’s still my baby. - Happy Birthday Palmer. Daddy loves you….
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 22:03:25 +0000