Remember

I don’t remember what it felt like to sit in my mother’s lap or the sound of her voice reading to me. You won’t remember these things about me either. You won’t remember that our house had wallpaper on the ceilings, that we stood on ladders and used a machine to steam and peel it off, our arms aching from being held aloft, dirty water dripping on you as you crawled around below. You won’t remember that there was music playing always, or that we hired an opera student to babysit and sing you arias. You won’t remember that I painted whimsical fish and ocean sprites on your bedroom wall, or later the Mono Liso. Or how I held your flailing arms and legs and rocked you in a big blue chair, all because you wanted chocolate milk at 3am. You won’t remember me pushing the stroller through the snow, you all bundled in fleece, because it was the only way you’d go to sleep.

You won’t remember that all we needed was a sofa to sit back and watch you perform, blissed out while you inhabited endless characters, costumes and worlds all for our viewing pleasure. Or how we banned technology for years just so the show would keep going on. Nor will you remember how your thumb was your best friend and you spoke so lovingly of it, to it. You won’t remember how I marveled—truly—at your tiny, intricate drawings. Or how, when you wanted to fly for real, we hitched you to a harness, strapped on your wings and let you soar from the oak tree. You won’t remember sippy cups or Maymont Park or learning the words to the Peter Pan song and singing it with abandon. You won’t remember tire swings or puddle-jumping or that time I rolled out brown craft paper and let you run around in different colored paint all over it, or how I cut out sections of it later to decorate the dining room wall. You won’t remember how we decided to just work from home because we couldn’t get enough of you, how we sometimes just stayed in our pajamas all day long and were silly.

You won’t remember how many times we read Chicken Soup with Rice, or that time we drove to France and couldn’t bother to get out of the car because we were so immersed in a story about a certain wizard. You won’t remember your skinny, knobby little legs running out of the ocean and throwing yourself down to roll around all wet in the hot sand, and then we’d call you milanesita. Nor will you remember the gleeful timber of your voice or how excellent you were at jumping rope, how intensely you danced. You won’t remember how long you believed in Santa Clause or how easily you accepted the Reyes Magos when they showed up, because your faith in our stories was abiding.

That’s ok. I still remember.