The word "Mom" is so powerful.
By itself. Not "my mom ..." or "my mother..."
Just "Mom."
There's so much at stake when you say that single word, then wait for the response.
I don't say it much -- but when I do, I feel an overwhelming rush.
Just that one, elemental word suspends everything.
I don't think of what I probably will feel.
In that silence in between is a gulf.
That silence is holy.
Each year, the boys and I paint Christmas ornaments. Nothing big, just some little stuff from the craft store. We just use Sharpie pens. Then put our names and the year on the back.
Eventually we'll have enough of the ornaments that we'll run out of room. Our trees are seeming to get smaller each year. I like that, but we're going to have to get rid of other ornaments from when I was a kid.
With some time between my time as a kid to my kids' time as a kid, I've realized that I don't care to keep my old ornaments.
Sometimes ever the lightest ones feel like they carry so much weight they're enough to topple a tree over by themselves.
The truth is ... you change each year. You become somebody you weren't.
I'm content that I like who I am now better than who I was then. Or in terms of Christmas ... I like Christmas more now than I did then.
I wouldn't choose to remember 1985 over 2005. I'd like those newer ornaments, traditions, etc. to define Christmas for my family.
So where does that put my 9-year-old son, Asa?
Frankly, I don't know what to make of what I'm doing with these kids.
But what I do know is this ...
Tonight, Asa impatiently painted his Christmas ornament, looked at his 6-year-old brother Aden's work and thought he did such a stupid job on his own that he turned his over and wrote, "Asa 2007" on the back.
It might seem convoluted, but his willingness to use a former Christmas self so unceremoniously and unsentimentally, to save face for a present self, makes me feel like Christmas must be going smoothly for these guys.
P.S. Of course, I told him it looked great. And it's got that Asa 2009 charm. But in all honesty, take a look at Aden's work, a full year behind Asa 2007, to see why Asa might have wanted to bend the space-time continuum ...
Of course, with my penguin with the Dolphins-colored scarf, I have to say I think I'm gonna go with Daddy 2009 ...
