This morning I went to drop off nephew #2’s forgotten clarinet at school. When I turned to hug him good bye his face clouded with worry.

“Not at school,” he whispered. He shot a furtive look to his buddies telling  synthetic macho stories on equally manufactured gym benches.

I looked around then gave him a bold fist bump. His flitting worry of looking uncool  in his peers’ eyes drifted away. The resulting pain on my knuckles stayed for just a moment, then drifted away too. It is the dull pain in my heart I can’t shake.

I knew this day would come. I am scared that it’s finally here. In my mind he is still the 8-month-old who practically walked into my life  and stole my heart. We have been together ever since. I look at him and see nine years worth of memories.

He is the toddler who rolled in the mud and had to be hosed down before coming indoors. He is the kid who thought my lap was the most comfortable seat in the house and doodled on my homework sheets, much to the chagrin of my teachers. He is still the kid who detested eating ‘bustables’ like carrots and peas. He is still the kid who threw a tantrum at a family lunch and  as if on cue, everyone grabbed a limb and carried him back to the car. Smiling.

He is the precocious four year old asking me why I bought tampons and why could he not have some? I see the first kindergärtner in his class to do his shoe-strings under my careful ‘bunny ears’ guidance. He asks me why I pee sitting down, then looses all interest three words into the conversation. I explain the fabricated difference between ghosts and spirits to his class and he thinks I hung the moon. I see his eyes lighting up on a mischievous thought. They light up again at the pet store for Goldilocks, the electric-blue Betta pet fish.

Other memories flow in an easy timeless camaraderie. He has never had a cold  he did not want to share with me. I have returned the unwarranted favors countless times, sometimes upping my game with strep throat or whatever seasonal flu caught my fancy. We have sprinted in the rain, our asthmatic chests fighting for breath as well as bragging rights.  I have wheezed ‘I beat you’ as often as  ‘hey… wait up’.  Nowadays I seem to be wheezing more of the latter.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable memories are the ones I have allowed to pass unacknowledged. I taught him to cheat at poker by shoving cards into his cartoon character drawers. Now the little bugger wins almost every game. I chased him around the doctor’s office in order to get his school shots. He wants to be a doctor so he can give me vengeance shots.

I should have read these last memories for the shape of things to come. But the things to come are here. Already.

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