Where did he go?
I’m laying in bed.
Exhausted even though I got more than 8 hours of sleep
Knowing I won’t feel any more rested even if I sleep more
Then I hear him
His high-pitched toddler voice
Babbling to himself in his crib
I’m never sure what he’s saying
Is he talking to himself? His toys?
He babbles and giggles and I can’t help but smile
I turn on the monitor screen to see him
His small round body wrapped in his batman pajamas
He’s sitting up now in his crib
Surrounded by his sesame street blanket
His Hobbes
His Tiger Bear
He’s turning his busy-box on and off and giggling at the plastic fish that dance around inside their pretend ocean home
The video feed is in black and white but I know the colors so well that it doesn’t matter
His bright blonde hair, long—almost touching his shoulders now
His gray batman pajamas—a thrift store find that was given a new life with a child who loves his batman book but can’t even say his name yet
His bright blue eyes set above impossibly chubby and rosy cheeks.
People always compliment his eyes and Andrew—without fail—explains
“He stole them from Mom”
I watch him and listen to his voice
I want to go in and pick him up out of bed and squeeze his chubby body in my arms
But for a moment I just sit and watch.
Where did he go?
From the tiny baby who was gently placed in my arms several hours after an emergency-C brought him screaming into the world as his heart fought its way back to an acceptable rate
Still groggy from the general anesthesia I looked at him
Tiny
Over 8 lbs but you never realize how small that is until it’s in human form
He was still a blob—the newest of newborn baby stages
Who does he look like? Anyone at this point
I stared at his little eyes
His nose
Wrapped his fingers around mine
“He’s perfect” I whispered
That little baby blob is now a 27 lb toddler
bouncing around in his crib
Laughing
Babbling sounds that will soon coalesce to form words
Phrases
Sentences
He has moods—many
He has wants, not just needs
He has a sense of humor and a silly grin
He has gentle hugs if he thinks I’m sad or hurt
Today is his first haircut.
We had planned to wait longer but his long bangs have been falling into his eyes for too long
On hot summer days when he runs around the backyard his neck is drenched in sweat and covered in slimy blonde snakes
Not after today
His blonde waves will fall to the floor but along with it--something else
Something intangible
Aside from his finger and toenails—lethal weapons when not carefully controlled
This child has been unaltered since he was born
Today that ends.
Once he’s had a haircut—a fairly arbitrary milestone to choose, I admit
I won’t be able to call him my baby
He’s a kid—a toddler
He will hop out of the stylist’s chair and be different somehow
Older? More mature? If there’s a word for it I don’t know it
I’ve been toying with calling him a toddler for a while now
But he’s still been a baby to me
How did we get here?
Everyone says that children grow up too fast but does everyone feel like they blinked and missed it?
Something important?
Something you can’t get back?
This boy is our first so I have no basis for comparison
I’ve never known a haircut that hurts
But for some reason
This one
This one that isn’t even happening to me
Hurts.
It just hurts.
I’m laying in bed.
Exhausted even though I got more than 8 hours of sleep
Knowing I won’t feel any more rested even if I sleep more
Then I hear him
His high-pitched toddler voice
Babbling to himself in his crib
I’m never sure what he’s saying
Is he talking to himself? His toys?
He babbles and giggles and I can’t help but smile
I turn on the monitor screen to see him
His small round body wrapped in his batman pajamas
He’s sitting up now in his crib
Surrounded by his sesame street blanket
His Hobbes
His Tiger Bear
He’s turning his busy-box on and off and giggling at the plastic fish that dance around inside their pretend ocean home
The video feed is in black and white but I know the colors so well that it doesn’t matter
His bright blonde hair, long—almost touching his shoulders now
His gray batman pajamas—a thrift store find that was given a new life with a child who loves his batman book but can’t even say his name yet
His bright blue eyes set above impossibly chubby and rosy cheeks.
People always compliment his eyes and Andrew—without fail—explains
“He stole them from Mom”
I watch him and listen to his voice
I want to go in and pick him up out of bed and squeeze his chubby body in my arms
But for a moment I just sit and watch.
Where did he go?
From the tiny baby who was gently placed in my arms several hours after an emergency-C brought him screaming into the world as his heart fought its way back to an acceptable rate
Still groggy from the general anesthesia I looked at him
Tiny
Over 8 lbs but you never realize how small that is until it’s in human form
He was still a blob—the newest of newborn baby stages
Who does he look like? Anyone at this point
I stared at his little eyes
His nose
Wrapped his fingers around mine
“He’s perfect” I whispered
That little baby blob is now a 27 lb toddler
bouncing around in his crib
Laughing
Babbling sounds that will soon coalesce to form words
Phrases
Sentences
He has moods—many
He has wants, not just needs
He has a sense of humor and a silly grin
He has gentle hugs if he thinks I’m sad or hurt
Today is his first haircut.
We had planned to wait longer but his long bangs have been falling into his eyes for too long
On hot summer days when he runs around the backyard his neck is drenched in sweat and covered in slimy blonde snakes
Not after today
His blonde waves will fall to the floor but along with it--something else
Something intangible
Aside from his finger and toenails—lethal weapons when not carefully controlled
This child has been unaltered since he was born
Today that ends.
Once he’s had a haircut—a fairly arbitrary milestone to choose, I admit
I won’t be able to call him my baby
He’s a kid—a toddler
He will hop out of the stylist’s chair and be different somehow
Older? More mature? If there’s a word for it I don’t know it
I’ve been toying with calling him a toddler for a while now
But he’s still been a baby to me
How did we get here?
Everyone says that children grow up too fast but does everyone feel like they blinked and missed it?
Something important?
Something you can’t get back?
This boy is our first so I have no basis for comparison
I’ve never known a haircut that hurts
But for some reason
This one
This one that isn’t even happening to me
Hurts.
It just hurts.
Tornado Wrangler
My boots kicked up clouds of dust as I carefully crept closer to her
She had been working for hours
Hard, physical labor
She couldn’t look away for even a second--hence my caution
The sky was gray and seemed to wrap itself around us
Like the glass of a snow globe
Around my feet colorless dried-up grass---dead
So dead it’s hard to imagine they could have ever lived
And sprinkled like confetti after a parade were the bones
Burned white from the sun’s rays and bearing little resemblance to the creatures
whose framework they once sturdily held together
Determined to get to her, I crept on
carefully stepping over them
well-aware that I was reaching an epicenter of sorts
the eye of the storm
The tornado and its wrangler
The closer I got the more the wind from the cyclone storm fought to keep me away
My heart beat faster as the distance between us grew smaller
But
Looking at her
She couldn’t have been more than 13
Drenched in sweat
Wearing gray work clothes
Filthy
Her skin was dark from long hours baking in the sun
If I don’t work fast the sun will soon bake her so deeply that she will be
nothing more than the sun-bleached bones that littered the landscape around us
She desperately leapt from side to side as the twister fought her
viciously trying to whip her back and forth as she held tight to its tail, keeping her boots firmly on the ground
The closer I came the more I could see her muscles straining against its fury
Her work gloves, once very thick were riddled with holes from the sheer amount of wear and tear
Her boots looked like mine but were clearly too big
It made her clumsy
At that moment a clap of thunder roared across the plains and we both jumped
With her attention momentarily broken
The cyclone gathered its power and furiously whipped its tail
picking up the small girl and thrashing her back and forth through the air
Like a hyena violently breaking the spine of its prey
Her slender body bent and contorted with each change in direction
until the twister, perhaps having had enough fun
perhaps just having expended all of it’s energy
slammed her violently to the ground
and it was quiet
I ran toward her but was stopped about 30 feet away by a barbed wire fence
I noticed that it fully enclosed the girl and her twister with a diameter of about 50 feet across
I watched the girl for a moment
lying in a heap on the ground
Limbs bent in unnatural ways
if her spine was only broken in a handful of places it would be a miracle
Hey, buckaroo…
I called out to her gently...trying as hard as I could to differentiate myself from the tornado she continued to cling to
But as she continued to lay there, too far for me to reach her, I knew I had to be firm
Get up!
You need to get up.
She twitched
Her shoulder moved up slightly as she tried to pull her arm out from under her mangled body
I could hear her crying
A child’s cry
Summoning as much strength as she could
she forced her body up
pulled her limbs under her
and pushed away from the ground
I could see her face streaked with tears
Rivers flowing down her face through the layers of dust and dirt
Her hands were bleeding through the holes in her work gloves
She looked at me
Her grey-green eyes held so much pain and fear
It’s not fair
she said
It hurts and it’s not fair
With tears welling in my eyes I said
I know, buckaroo
it’s not fair
A twister like this would be more than a formidable match for even the most experienced vaquero
But it doesn’t belong to them
It’s yours.
And you’re doing a helluva job.
Now break it.
Because you
are not allowed to be broken.
Not by this.
She looked at me for a long time as she held the quiet twister tail
Digesting what I had said
If I had been looking more carefully
I would have seen the barbed wire slowly closing in around me
And the clouds forming above my head
If I had gotten closer I could have seen the reflection in her eyes
The girl gave me a nod
planted her oversized boots into the dirt with a determination I had not seen before nor have I seen since
In anyone
She wrapped the tornado tail around her arm for extra leverage
And held with all of her might as their battle continued
Her on one side of her barbed wire cage
Me on the other
Surrounded by the bones of the dead
My boots kicked up clouds of dust as I carefully crept closer to her
She had been working for hours
Hard, physical labor
She couldn’t look away for even a second--hence my caution
The sky was gray and seemed to wrap itself around us
Like the glass of a snow globe
Around my feet colorless dried-up grass---dead
So dead it’s hard to imagine they could have ever lived
And sprinkled like confetti after a parade were the bones
Burned white from the sun’s rays and bearing little resemblance to the creatures
whose framework they once sturdily held together
Determined to get to her, I crept on
carefully stepping over them
well-aware that I was reaching an epicenter of sorts
the eye of the storm
The tornado and its wrangler
The closer I got the more the wind from the cyclone storm fought to keep me away
My heart beat faster as the distance between us grew smaller
But
Looking at her
She couldn’t have been more than 13
Drenched in sweat
Wearing gray work clothes
Filthy
Her skin was dark from long hours baking in the sun
If I don’t work fast the sun will soon bake her so deeply that she will be
nothing more than the sun-bleached bones that littered the landscape around us
She desperately leapt from side to side as the twister fought her
viciously trying to whip her back and forth as she held tight to its tail, keeping her boots firmly on the ground
The closer I came the more I could see her muscles straining against its fury
Her work gloves, once very thick were riddled with holes from the sheer amount of wear and tear
Her boots looked like mine but were clearly too big
It made her clumsy
At that moment a clap of thunder roared across the plains and we both jumped
With her attention momentarily broken
The cyclone gathered its power and furiously whipped its tail
picking up the small girl and thrashing her back and forth through the air
Like a hyena violently breaking the spine of its prey
Her slender body bent and contorted with each change in direction
until the twister, perhaps having had enough fun
perhaps just having expended all of it’s energy
slammed her violently to the ground
and it was quiet
I ran toward her but was stopped about 30 feet away by a barbed wire fence
I noticed that it fully enclosed the girl and her twister with a diameter of about 50 feet across
I watched the girl for a moment
lying in a heap on the ground
Limbs bent in unnatural ways
if her spine was only broken in a handful of places it would be a miracle
Hey, buckaroo…
I called out to her gently...trying as hard as I could to differentiate myself from the tornado she continued to cling to
But as she continued to lay there, too far for me to reach her, I knew I had to be firm
Get up!
You need to get up.
She twitched
Her shoulder moved up slightly as she tried to pull her arm out from under her mangled body
I could hear her crying
A child’s cry
Summoning as much strength as she could
she forced her body up
pulled her limbs under her
and pushed away from the ground
I could see her face streaked with tears
Rivers flowing down her face through the layers of dust and dirt
Her hands were bleeding through the holes in her work gloves
She looked at me
Her grey-green eyes held so much pain and fear
It’s not fair
she said
It hurts and it’s not fair
With tears welling in my eyes I said
I know, buckaroo
it’s not fair
A twister like this would be more than a formidable match for even the most experienced vaquero
But it doesn’t belong to them
It’s yours.
And you’re doing a helluva job.
Now break it.
Because you
are not allowed to be broken.
Not by this.
She looked at me for a long time as she held the quiet twister tail
Digesting what I had said
If I had been looking more carefully
I would have seen the barbed wire slowly closing in around me
And the clouds forming above my head
If I had gotten closer I could have seen the reflection in her eyes
The girl gave me a nod
planted her oversized boots into the dirt with a determination I had not seen before nor have I seen since
In anyone
She wrapped the tornado tail around her arm for extra leverage
And held with all of her might as their battle continued
Her on one side of her barbed wire cage
Me on the other
Surrounded by the bones of the dead
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