The Last of the Firsts

"...and they lived happily ever after."

Tonight Little A and I are going to kindergarten round-up. I have no idea why it needs to be so soon; so early; why it's arrived so fast.

While filling out all of the required forms, I couldn't help but keep thinking of the day that she and I left the hospital together. The nurse rolled us out to the door and I stood up, her in my arms, terrified to leave the hospital, and yet, off we went, she and I, to the car together and out into the world.

She was so little for so long; always the tiniest one, the frailest one, the one that everyone coddled and hovered over; her little frame belied her strong spirit.

And now, oh now. She is the Queen of Everything and Everyone. She has a sense of humor that has people laughing constantly. She has a mind that forgets nothing. She has the ability to make sunshine out of rain.

I don't want this to end. I don't want her to go to school. I don't want to have her grow, and yet, of course, I do. I'm not ungrateful for this magic life, but if I had an opportunity to stop time, it would be now.

I don't want her to know of insecurity or think twice before she bursts out into song. I don't want her to feel like she has to dress a certain way or talk a certain way or stop the way that she uses "w" instead of "l" and "r".

I want her to always believe that she is magic, that she can turn the song on the radio by willing it so, that she can open doors by pointing her finger, for in many ways, I think when she realizes that isn't so, it will be the last of my magic as well.

Knowing my body will never bear another child, knowing that this is the last of the firsts, knowing that she is on the cusp of so many things, all of them pulling her further out into the world and from me; I can't describe this ache.

I believe that ee cummings said it best:
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)