What I know now

That's my son above, with his two grand-aunts, Grace and Winnie, a couple of weeks ago. I did not fully comprehend how much I would enjoy having my son back home. Our prickly relationship all through his college years certainly didn't lead me to believe his return would be what it has been—a chance for me to take a deep loving breath of recognition and gratitude for all that he is, how he has grown, all that he brings. He is a stalwart, unfailingly patient with his elder aunts—if not always with me, but then nor am I unfailingly patient with him! But we get each other. We finally know how to take a step back and start again. And there he is this morning, doing his homework for his EMT class. I remember the days back in middle school and even in high school when I was tearing my hair and couldn't imagine that he would ever sit down to homework willingly, when the tenor of my nights was completely dictated by what he had been assigned and how much reading and writing it entailed. I can recall the evenings my husband would stand at his elbow as he did math homework, repeating like a mantra, Okay next problem, Okay now the next one, to help him keep going. I never pictured this: My boy rising and sitting down with his textbooks motivated by nothing but his own desire. I don't know if I can fully explain it, but it is a grace beyond anything I knew to expect, which I see now was a colossal failure of imagination on my part. He impresses me every day.