There has never been a day I loved you more than today

Oh! How you have grown, changed

Oh! How you will grow, change still.

I will love you yet more,

Sasha. My youngest.

Yesterday you came downstairs from slumber

Your eyes strained into the early afternoon light

A sun-blinded bat

I asked you to shovel the snow. You groaned.

I love that too.

My teenager.

Your own being.

Enjoying the freedoms your siblings paved for you.

I would be lying to say I don’t miss your younger self.

…your cuddly younger self

So many hugs! So many smooches!

Oh! How you adored me!

Now I steal hugs whenever I can get them.

They are quarters on the sidewalk.

These days, I mostly find you

In between the lines

In the spaces

Like, for example,

On your walls:

Covered in your drawings.

Your art. Your illustrations

Of another world. A fantasy world.

So exquisite. (How did you learn to do that?)

In the details, I see

Your depth

Your heart

In their eyes, I see your own

Your pain

Your tenderness

I see you growing

With every new piece.

I see you when I cannot see you.

And I cannot imagine life without you

Even so you mostly hide in your room

Come out for video games,

To go to school,

And for the meager sustenance you consume

(How can a growing boy eat so little?).

Every now and then…

I find myself listening to you

I never expect it

It just happens

At the table or in the car

To your ideas and theories

To your passion

Your voice lifts like a song -

Sung in baritone -

Your hands dance

You pause to laugh, to seek understanding

To breathe

So many thoughts

So many opinions

Observations

You, the mouse who keeps all the sun to share

When it is darkest.

I savour every moment however fleeting.

Soon enough…university, I would assume.

So I seek you today

In the spaces

Knowing my most concentrated time with you is already closed

But I will take whatever I can get

For as long as I live

I cannot imagine my world without you.