These many miles between me and my boy, Devon make me ache a little.
He has always walked on air. His feet, even when they do touch the ground, only touch for an instant at a time. Devon has an intensity these days that endears me to him. "Dad, look at this ship" he says, the minute Legos in his dextrous, strong fingers. "This panel folds back in case there's space ice and a laser comes out this hole, pffew pffew pffew, and blasts the ice. It falls behind the ship and makes a shield..." Now he's lost in his imaginary orbit around Galacticon 5.
Too often, my responses to him are farther away than I am tonite in Salisbury Church in Eastern Illinois. And for that I am sorry. I can't change those bland "uh-huh's" of the past. I want to nuzzle in again and stick my nose in Devon's neck.
I want to sit side by side with him and watch him build the next ship from scratch. The noise that is his digging through the Legos. Thousands of bizzarre shaped plastic blocks, all at once tapping together, like the sound of the sea foam as the wave recedes and the millions of bubbles pop in a bacon-frying sizzle. Devon can see the tiniest detail and recognizes potential in each block as it relates to his latest creation. I want to watch, and listen.
"Next time", I tell myself. I must do it before he turns 12 and enters the wash and tumble of puberty. I must remember. I must remember the promise fulfilled. Devon the miracle. The boy who lived. I must remember he needs me. Now more than ever.