How to Leave Your Child

You bring him home from the hospital, in our case so early that you haven’t yet bought him a bed.

You look at him, inscrutable in a quickly assembled bassinet, and set about understanding him.

You hold him.

You hold him until, and while, he learns to walk, then hold out your hands so that he has somewhere to practice walking to.

You hold him only when he wants you to (and perhaps just a little more).

You imagine him in the world, first looming above others, their turning to him; then small, unknown, alone.

You put on his socks and shoes approximately 100,000 times.

You teach him to share, to understand that he is a luscious thing but also already in a world of things.

You pocket the stones and sticks that dazzle him, and you acknowledge the bugs and his wonder of them when he asks you to.

You help him draw his first map of life, the small, timezoneless continent from bedrooms to kitchen to the swings in the park.

You cut his hair in the kitchen, his feet kicking beneath the chair. You see him look older, like a person.

You worry that he changes faster than you can love him.

You lower ladders of interest — cleats for soccer, a synthetic mitt (and one for yourself), piano lessons, new batteries in an old camera, notebooks ruled and blank, flash cards of the periodic table — to see which ones he climbs.

You note his preferences wherever they emerge — the spoon with the blue handle, everything bagels then poppy seed if they’re out, avocados but not mushrooms, Frog and Toad and Calvin and Hobbes.

You teach him to have a soft heart.

You worry that his heart is too soft.

You go to soccer games, baseball games, talent shows, science fairs, assemblies, film screenings. You watch bands battle.

You put on Ella & Louis while you build LEGOs, partly because this is your time too, but also so that your shared soundtrack is memorable, even classic, something he’ll hear forever and always be taken here.

You keep as much of the broken world from him as you can.

You worry that the world is too broken.

You hold him in the cab on the way to the ER, reassuring him that he can pick the color of the cast that will fix his arm until summer is over.

You are surprised to see that his younger sister has figured him out faster than you did (and are not surprised that their mother, your wife, has figured everything out fastest of all).

You watch him take more space, eventually looking directly into his mother’s eyes, then letting his mother put her head on his chest when they hug.

You relearn geometry and almost trigonometry.

You find yourself laughing at his jokes.

You catch him lying, and you are disappointed in him even though you know lies are the currency of growth.

You help him to craft a future self, to tell others how his story could run ahead into a person that he would recognize.

You try not to think about how much of his story, his beautiful unfolding self, you won’t be around to witness.

You fall into the habit of going to sleep before he tries to slip in the door without disturbing the house.

You do the math on the number of days you have left with him before his coming home will be a visit. You do not like learning this math either.

You put on an old spring coat and find a stone he held up to you to keep, and it’s a talisman that conjures a boy that will always be at your hip.

You try to remain the right amount of afraid and angry as a pandemic descends and then grinds on (and you fail again and again).

You see him work hard, drafting big futures when futures of any size seem improbable, and you try to believe in him for the both of you.

You take him to a hotel near the Newark Airport so that he can take a stupid test.

You hear of his acceptances, more than you expected, farther away.

You reacquaint yourself with the equation: d = rt.

You try not to think of fires and floods more biblical every year, the earth shaking and splitting open underneath him, the guns and guns and guns.

You support him in his decision, holding it while he tries it on again and again to see whether it fits.

You wonder if you’ve been good enough, done well enough, taught him how to cross each kind of street, how to spot a threat, how to keep the right amount of money, how to prevent himself from dissolving into what others want or say or see.

You plan and shop and pack and repack to find the right amount to plant a new life that can grow, even thrive.

You figure out a good way to ship a guitar.

You watch him say goodbye to Central Park, to the subway, to his favorite skate spots, to a decent bacon egg and cheese (“baconeggandcheese”).

You all board a plane to take him away because somehow it’s time.

You see his mother, who has loved him so thoroughly and expertly for so long, always thinking of everything, arrive at the moment when nothing more needs packing or unpacking, no more boxes need making and checking, and it’s almost too much to bear.

You take turns hugging him as long as he wants you to (and perhaps just a little more).

You must finish hugging him.

You turn toward your smaller home.

And then, just like that, he’s gone.