For Flynn (for now)...

For Flynn...

(for now)

My sweet baby boy, who will you be?

A writer of stories, a sailor of seas?

Will you climb craggy mountains, covered in snow?

What will you do? Where will you go?

Will you pilot an airplane and fly to strange lands,

With cinnamon smells, and shifting gold sands?

Will you travel to jungles, green viney and deep,

With tigery corners, and dark things that creep?

Will you find a kind woman and a simple, small home,

filled with a brightness of a child your own?

Will you build tall grey towers that pierce the clouds?

Whatever you do, you know I'll be proud.

I hold you, my angel, and can't understand,

how such a small spirit, with tiny, soft hands,

will grow in leaps and someday be,

A grown handsome man, much taller than me.

You've so much to do, and so much to see.

Sweet baby boy, who will you be?

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    Reading this, it seems like a perfectly reasonable poem for a son. But I don't think it's about you, Flynn, I don't. This is all that I could imagine, 21-year-old exhausted me, when I held you, screaming and crying, in my arms. This is all I could dream for you when I rocked you and tried not to go crazy from the colic, and noticed that, indeed, you were of the boy variety.

    But that's just so gray. I didn't know you. I didn't know about the COLOR in you.

    I didn't know about my Flynn. The dude. I didn't know about your love of all that sparkles, the gleam in your eye, your crazy-laugh. I didn't know about your sweet, sweet heart. I didn't know about the vermilion, chartreuse, cerulean, violet. I didn't. 

    I didn't know about your compassion, your strength, the burden you have of FEELING everything. I didn't know about your gem collection, the turquoise dragonflies in your desk drawer. The special way you have of complimenting me and making my day, the way you draw like geometry.

     I didn't know that you would spend evenings memorizing dance moves to your favorite songs, loving, loving, LOVING everyone and everything so much. I didn't know about your "sassy, sassy unicorn power." I didn't know about the lyrics and poetry in you.

    When I wrote your sisters' poems, I knew who they were. I knew about the magic in their hearts, or could imagine it blossoming. I knew about their vivid orchid, their crimson, their amber, their sapphire, their lime green, but I dreamed brown for you. I couldn't dream of an architect who painted, a sailor who sang. I couldn't dream of a pilot who was a ballroom dancer, a husband and father who played the sax at a jazz bar every Friday night. I couldn't imagine a grown, handsome man who was a poet, an artist, a colorful, brilliant, vibrant human being... but those are the dreams you deserve.

    I wrote that poem, I think, for some other momma's son. Someone else who isn't you, who isn't a rainbow of amazing colors. I dreamed gray dreams for an amaranth, sea green, lavendar, coral, indigo, tangerine boy, and sweetheart, I'm sorry. I had no imagination.

    But most of all, I am sorry that I dreamed YOUR dreams for you. When I imagined raising a boy, I had no idea of the power of your spirit, the color in your soul. I imagined a Christopher Robin..... and I got a Ziggy Stardust.

    But buddy, that one line, I'm willing to stand behind that one line, "Whatever you do, you know I'll be proud." Because, know what?? I already am.