100 Days of Gladness: Day 38
He is telling her a secret.
It’s a ten-second moment between mother and son,
and I catch it, smiling, with a silenced phone.
I know that in this same moment,
the mother has muted the din of other thoughts.
Deep decisions, the ones that disrupt, unsettle, break ground.
And there’s the rubik’s cube of her work life
always running in the background, solving,
turning, pivoting, turning a different direction, then another, and
then back on itself, solving, ever solving.
Layer in the private worries burrowed into her rib cage
somewhere, pacing, looking for rest,
seldom finding it.
But in this moment, in her mother’s ear,
there is a wide open, unencumbered place
that he whispers into, and finds
a listening. A receiving.
I caught it with my phone.
But I wondered if she caught it, too.
I mean, he is precious to her. Anyone can see that.
But does she know how precious she is to…
