Hello Everyone,
My son Barney turns two on February 4th. He’s singing songs now. Walking, running. Putting buckles together. He understands everything—though his understanding is far ahead of his talking.
Lately, when I’m holding him, or when he’s sitting on my lap facing me, he takes my hands and places them on either side of my face. He presses his forehead to mine. If I kiss his forehead or his nose, he laughs loudly, pulls his head back, then brings it in again, asking me—without words—to do it one more time.
I love these moments. I love his warm face against mine, the sensation of my nose, my forehead, my lips near his skin. I love the baby giggles as I give him a kiss, and then how they get louder as I do it again. When I feel into my chest, there’s warmth, and something circles inside me, expanding outward until it feels so big it fills the entire universe. In my head, I say to myself, time, please stand still, as if I can freeze that moment and live in it forever.
These moments feel especially significant because for the first year and a half of Barney’s life, I either couldn’t hold him or had to wear a mask because I developed severe kidney disease due to complications during my delivery. My body wasn’t strong enough for the kind of physical closeness other parents give without thinking. Now I can carry him and be unmasked around him because my body has recovered enough, and I’m on a lower dose of immunosuppressants. And Barney is in this affectionate season of his toddlerhood—a magical time in our lives together.
But there’s another layer too: I know I won’t have this period of toddlerhood again. I can’t—and don’t choose to—have more children. This is it.
There are other moments in my life when I’ve wished I could freeze time. When I was sitting shoulder to shoulder with a high school friend on a school bus, on the way to a soccer game. When I was lying under the covers of my king-sized bed with a dear friend in my early thirties, giggling, feeling the warmth of the sheets and the comfort of their presence.
These moments all share the qualities of intimacy and connection. I’m aware in the moment that it’s happening—not as much seeing the person but feeling the sensations. I know, in the moment, that this is one of those moments I’ll someday want to return to. And part of what makes it so intense is that awareness itself.
I realize that I want time to freeze, but something always interrupts it. The body—I can’t hold a toddler forever. Or time itself—arriving at the soccer game. Or years later, the friend I’d giggled with in bed needing to leave.
And I imagine what it would be like if I was able to freeze time. If Barney and I could hold our foreheads together a little longer, holding onto the warmth of that moment. Or on the bus, to be able to feel the warmth of my high school friend’s shoulder again. Or being face to face with my friend in my thirties, giggling as we feel each other’s closeness.
And then I close my eyes and feel the warmth all over again, see the scene. And in some ways, time did hold still—because it is captured in my mind, I can feel it again in my body, and it is sealed in my heart. I can relive it, ever so slightly. And I trust I’ll feel it again—in some other way.
Love,
Danielle
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