Can I Hold Your Hand?

The kids and I walked to church this morning. Their dad had gone in early and would meet us there.  As we neared the church our four daughters ran on ahead, leaving me alone for a few minutes with our 7-year-old son, Benson.

Ben and I took our time.  It was a bright morning.  There was a slight breeze.  The air felt a little warmer.   I looked around at the water and the sky wondering if spring might finally be here.

“Mom?” Ben asked.

“What?”

He stopped for just a second, looking up at me.  Squinting into the sun.    “I want to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“You sure are pretty,” he said.  “Can I hold your hand?”

He had just gotten a new white, button-down dress shirt with a blue clip-on tie.  I had helped him clip the tie on before we left the house.  He had the shirt tucked in neatly to his navy blue dress pants. As I was getting ready earlier I had seen him scrutinizing himself in the hallway mirror.  He had wetted his hair down, frustrated with the cowlick he inherited from his mother.  Then he had just stood in front of the big hallway mirror for a couple of minutes adjusting his tie, straightening his shirt, making sure everything was okay.

I smiled, and reached for his hand.  “Thank you, Ben.  You’re looking pretty sharp this morning, as well,” I said.

He smiled up at me again.  And scrunched up his eyebrows.

In that instant, I was remembering the first time I saw him.  He was a big baby.  Still little in my arms.  I sat in my hospital bed holding him that morning.  He had brown hair then.  But very faint, blond, eyebrows.  And even then, that first morning he was with us, I noticed what distinctive eyebrows he has. Eyebrows that are not straight and flat, or even gently arching over his eyes.  Ben’s eyebrows are dramatic.  The kind of eyebrows an artist would give, as an afterthought.  One a little different from the other.  I noticed it that first morning.  I even ran my fingers gently over his eyebrows that morning.  Smiling to myself.  This boy would have great eyebrows, I remember thinking at the time.

Now that he’s 7, he’ll scrunch up his forehead sometimes.  Usually when he’s trying to be funny, or pretending to be serious.  He’ll raise one of those brows slightly higher than the other.  Further exaggerating them.  We’ll almost always laugh.  And I’ll think, every time, what great eyebrows he has.

I looked down at him again this morning as we finished our walk to church. He was walking confidently alongside me. Dressed in his new dress shirt and tie. Holding my hand.   I wasn’t taking his hand to pull him along with me, anymore. He was holding my hand. Proudly.  I gave his hand a squeeze.  He squinted up at me once more.

And in the next instant, just before we reached the door, I thought of him as a young man.   Walking confidently.  All dressed up.  Having double-checked himself in the mirror before leaving the house.  I pictured the eyebrows.  Raised slightly in a show of good humor.  And in my mind he was walking with someone.   Smiling at her.  Taking her hand.  Walking proudly alongside her.   Eager to show her off to the world.

But she wasn’t me anymore.  And I wondered how it will feel to step aside then.  Knowing that my job was done.   That I had just been the training ground.

I let go of his hand as we reached the church.  He stepped ahead of me and opened the door.  Waiting for me to enter first.  I reached over and ran my hand through his hair.  He looked at me.   A little admiringly, I think.

And I told myself to memorize that look.  Right then.  To memorize that moment.  To hold onto it.  For tomorrow. When it is no longer me whom my son smiles at and asks, “Can I hold your hand?”