Gabrielle’s Magical Notebook

I almost lost him in the blue, my little boy running at the sky. He knew he could catch it, too. He ran with his arms wide open big to gather up all the clouds and his mouth open shouting to drink in the sunshine. They danced together that day, my boy and the sky.

“Put me down, Mommy,” he’d yelled when we’d first come over the rise. His feet had started to move in expectation.

“Not yet, baby,” I’d wanted to say.

“Stay here in my arms a bit longer,” I’d wanted to whisper to him.

“That sky is so very big and I will lose you in all that blue,” I’d almost said.

But I had felt his small body against mine and watched the light turn on in his eyes. His feet needed to run and his skin needed the wind that would blow against him. My boy needed the sky like food or water so I had put him down and I’d let him go.

He ran away from me across the sand. His legs that I’d always described as sturdy found new grace as his feet pounded against the ground. He flung his arms out to the sides and spread his hands to feel the day slide between his fingers. A yell that was pure joy floated back to me on the breeze. His mouth open wide he yelled his happiness at the sky that watched like a proud father.

It was so big, that blue. So very bright and dark and wide and deep and more than I could ever explain to my boy. Standing there on the ground I was honest and I told the sky that it scared me. I told it that it frightened me more than thunder or snow or hurricane.

“I gave you my boy,” I told the sky. “I put him down and he’s running to you like you’ll take care of him and make him happy.”

“Will you?” I asked the clouds as they blew by. “Will you take care of him or are you only for today, too?”

“He’s all I have and he’s running to you not me. I can’t be the wind.” I slumped in the sand and felt the roughness with my hands. “I can’t be sunshine and I can’t be bright clouds. I can’t be the sky for him.”

I looked up to the blue as the clouds blew away and the sun glinted off my tears. “You’ll have to be his sky, y’know? My feet won’t leave this earth and all my blues are dark and sad. You’ll have to be his sunshine and his wind and his bright blue.”

I put my head down in my hands, a familiar place for it. “Will you?” I whispered. “Please?”

It came to me on the breeze. The smell of yellow and the taste of starlight. The feel of birdsong and the sound of the horizon. It all blew through me and it said, “I will.” So I got to my feet and I went to my boy. I took his hand and we ran across the sand laughing together with the blue blue sky.