There are many boxes which I keep, that crowd around the points of my son’s childhood. I have carefully preserved their contents, sometimes in bubble-wrap, and proudly keep these elements of his joy, triumphs and bumps from birth through his recent high school graduation. I think that I keep all these things because it is my desire to reanimate his retired childhood, and thus reanimate my youthful motherhood, by extension just a bit longer. Maybe…..these boxes can last forever, I tell myself. They will stay around me in closets and on basement racks far beyond the time my son leaves for college and his own life…. I admit, just the cardboard boxes near me give me peace and bring cheer on days when I miss his presence now. I don’t even have to peek inside. Surrounded by these cardboard monuments hailing to an earlier time, comforted by their treasures, the current day feels more complete and tethered to this time-driven world.
I project that years from now when I am very old and I only have time left to peer inward, maybe someone will help me to take these boxes down for me from their perch. I will keep them open for days, I imagine on a bed in a spare room. I will take each piece out, unwrap it lovingly, and savor its touch and the memories it brings back into me as the overall feeling of time starts to side-step away.
As I saw with my own mother, her early memories became her fondest friends late in life. If I am very lucky, it will be my son who comes into the room, sits down next to me, and shares in my remembered happiness and joy.
Ava Hypatia
June 2019
Ava Hypatia
Verbal Strings 