Following Felix

The little fellow returned to England with his parents on Sunday, and now I must figure out how to navigate the altered state in which he left us. How can a human so young and small be such an extraordinary and powerful presence? He has permanently changed my view of the world. The other day Monte and I passed a trailer on the freeway carrying a load of shiny new tractors, and the sight of them delighted me. Look how big they are, and how brightly painted, and how ready to move the earth. And look at those enormous wheels! Beep beep! Yesterday I gardened without him, newly aware of the good heft of my trusty clipper, the thrilling force of the water from the hose, the satisfaction of poking the dirt and digging around and pulling out weeds––and then feeling guilty because he would have loved it so. I have a fine-tuned radar now for animals and trains and all manner of snacks, and last night I felt a tactile memory of him grasping my finger and pulling me along saying Nonna, and I will forever be grateful to have lived long enough to have had that experience.

I feel both full and bereft. I feel grateful and vulnerable, joyous about his presence in the world and at the same time newly terrified about what may lie ahead. I feel strange when I consider how brief a span of my life he will have been acquainted with, and that what often feels dystopian and futuristic to me is simply reality as he knows it. I am exhausted from a month of lifting and bending and trying to keep up with him, but as unsustainable as that might have been, the ache of missing him is worse. I’m oddly emotional; a tiny truck or dinosaur under the couch, a container of uneaten blueberries left in the fridge, a freight train passing without him here to see it…any of these can bring me to tears. I miss his blossoming words and the smell of his hair, and how every moment was a discovery to him, and how eager he was to try it all. I miss his grin and his laughter. What’s a Nonna to do?

But at this very moment, the morning sun is shining through the prism pendant that hangs in our kitchen window, casting rainbows on the wall and floor, and I have an impulse to sit, as Felix did, in the rainbow field, filled with wonder and enchantment.

A cookie would be nice too.