DAYS OF SUMMER

Dear Spike:

I knew this was coming. After all, your mother has spent almost every waking moment with you since you were born. It was ineludible that, at some point, she would recognize all summers must end.

She cried at the thought. “Do you think she will miss me?” she asked about the time, a month from now, when she will return to work. “Do you think she’ll be sad that I am not there?”

Of course, I told her, it would be so. I’ve seen the way you sleep, cuddled against her chest as she rocks on the rocking chair. I’ve heard the way you’ve cried for her to lift you from your cradle. And I am not so foolish as to believe my bottle and her breast are the same thing, for you.

I’ve never seen two people happier to be together.

Yes, I’m certain you will miss having your mother at your beck and call. And yes, I know she will miss you, too.

Of course, the reasonable among us would recognize the futility of squandering our happiest moments by fretting over the inevitable. Then again, your mother has never made claim to membership in any gang of reason. Thank God for that, as I’m still here.

By way of trying to make her feel better about things, I reminded her that I was, in fact, not such a bad person to leave in charge of her daughter’s care as she returns to her pre-you duty of saving the world, one kindergartener at a time. I am reasonably responsible, after all. And careful, too (though you’ve taken to sudden squirms and random gyrations as you discover this wonderful thing we call “muscle control,” I’ve not yet so much as stuck you with a diaper pin or dropped you on your head.)

It was, of course, not fear of my parenting that had your mother in tears this evening but fear of how much she would long to care for you herself. And in this matter, there is little I can do to alleviate her angst. For it is simply true that all summers must end.

You’ll learn that, I reckon, at some point between kindergarten and first grade. In the first weeks of August, perhaps, we’ll get to speaking about getting you a new lunch box or purchasing a new back pack and you’ll suddenly recognize the finite nature of the lovely, long and lazy days of summer.

At some point, down the road, you’ll realize that summers not only end but are, in fact, never quite long enough. And at some point not long thereafter, summer will cease to be a vacation at all and simply be — as I am using it at this very moment — a metaphor for other joys of life.

Yes, my child, all summers must end. It is that very quality that makes them so wonderful to begin with.

Love,
dad