A blown kiss kindles memories of the young mother I once was

The Boston Globe

The blown kiss was a surprise, and just as kisses in fairy tales often do, it worked its magic.STOCK.ADOBE.COM

Beverly Beckham

He’s a toddler and he lives next door and because I have been nowhere for months, I watch him more than I would have pre-COVID. I watch him with wonder the way I watched the trees this spring grow from spindly, gray sticks into the lush, green canopies they are now.

Pre-COVID, I wouldn’t have been dazzled by the slow, daily growth of both the trees and the boy. I would have noticed spring in all its beauty, of course. And I would have noticed the toddling boy, too, smiled and waved at him before I got into my car. But my head would have been elsewhere. I’d have been thinking about traffic, and where I was going, and did I have my phone? These things would have been my focus, not the little boy next door.

Now is a different story. Back in March, maybe it was early April, when the grass was brown and the ground still hard, I watched this little boy wobble across his front yard. He fell constantly. He took one slightly unbalanced step and then? Plunk, he was on the ground. But he was padded and he was determined. And he didn’t have far to fall. Plus his mother was with him, or his father, always cheering him on.

And so on he went. And I watched and marveled because he worked hard at walking. He concentrated. He would walk and fall, walk and fall, walk and fall. Sometimes he cried. But most times he didn’t. He just got himself up and tried again until eventually he got the hang of it.

For a long while, he walked like a Weeble. Weebles are small, plastic toy people incapable of falling over. “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.” This is their slogan. The way a penguin walks? That’s how a Weeble walks.

I watched the little boy next door penguin his way around his front and back yard for weeks. Inclines were his challenge. Inclines propelled him. Then this, too, changed. Now he runs down those hills.

Yesterday, his mom and I were talking, 6 feet apart, and he was in his backyard collecting sticks, picking them up, and holding them up. “Tick” he said with every one. “Tick.” And then he stopped, caught my eye, put down his stick, and blew me a kiss.

And this is when the flashback came. I was surprised it hadn’t come sooner because the little boy next door reminds me so much of my own son when he was little. They share the same Weeble shape, blond hair, and an old-man serious frown. But I’d observed all these things. So that moment when the past pops into the present hadn’t happened because most times a flashback depends on surprise.

The kiss? This was a surprise, and just as kisses in fairy tales often do, it worked its magic. You see, the little boy next door and his mom and dad live not in just any house. They live in the house my husband and I bought when we were first married. It’s the house we brought our infant son home to four days after he was born. It’s the house where he learned to walk and to talk.

And the house where my husband and I now live? Where I can stand at my kitchen window and see the little boy next door? This was my mother-in-law’s house. She lived where I live now and I lived where the little boy next door plays with his young mother every day.

Sometimes I forget that I’m not a young mother. Sometimes I forget that I ever was.

The kiss showed me the girl I was, showed me watching my son toddle to his grandmother’s, making his way down the incline to her house with fierce determination, showed me his joy, her smile, her hand on his head. The kiss made me see, too, another day a few years later, my son — Is he 3? Is he 4? — with suitcase in hand racing to Grandma’s for a sleepover. I stand on the front lawn and take a picture. He turns and waves. And then he blows me a kiss.

Then.

Now.

Love is the same.

I watch the little boy next door explore his back yard. Rocks. Dirt. Twigs. The clouds floating by. The trill of a bird. A flower. His plastic car. His swing. Everything fascinates him. And I wish, as I did for my own boy, for a world that cherishes love.