I wished that this moment would never end. Since that boy was mine.
The one who used to build LEGO cities and dream out loud about being an engineer.
The one who’d been buried under silence, shame, and survival. And now he was finding his way back. In May, I got an email from his teacher.
End-of-year assembly.
“You’ll want to be there,” she wrote. They called his name and my hands started shaking.
“Most Resilient Student!”
He approached the stage without haste or embarrassment. He was proud and tall.
He stopped, looked around, and grinned.
Sitting quietly in the back seat with tears in their eyes, one hand raised toward Eddie and the other toward me. Everything we had been unable to express was conveyed by that single gesture. Together, we were in this.
Restoring.
Eddie continues to call. Occasionally, it’s brief—just a “How was school?” maybe “You still into that robot stuff, son?”
Sometimes they talk about movies they used to watch together.
Sometimes there are awkward silences. But Mason always picks up.
It’s not perfect.
But it’s something.
I find little notes he writes to himself taped to the wall above his desk. Things like:
“Remember to breathe.”
“One step at a time.”
“You’re not alone, Mase.”
He makes fun of me for having greying hair and an old phone. When I serve him asparagus with his grilled salmon, he gripes.
He attempts to persuade me to allow him to tint his hair green.
And I pause what I’m doing and assist him when he approaches me in the kitchen. Not because I know everything.
However, because he inquired. because he has enough faith in me to inquire.
And that is more important than any solution.
For not recognizing it sooner, I’ve forgiven myself. I now realize that there is no peace in stillness. Respect doesn’t always mean that distance.
Love can be loud at times.
It occasionally shows up without invitation. It occasionally says, “I know you didn’t call, but I’m here anyhow.”
Freedom wasn’t necessary for Mason.
He needed to be saved. And I will always be glad that I grabbed him while he was falling.
Because mothers do that.
We jump right in. We cling tightly. And until the breathing evens out, the eyes open, and the light returns, we hold on.
