Before you go #4.... Make me laugh

Dear Sam,

A few days ago, you and I sat at the kitchen table completing your first college application.  Your little brother sat next to us working on a project for school.  It was one of those moments as a mom, and these seem to come more often when one of you is a senior in high school, when I zoomed out and hovered above our heads, watching for a heartbeat.  Your curly head was turning alternately to the work I was completing on the laptop in front of me and your brother’s blond head bent over a drawing you were helping him with.  I was bouncing my attention between the two of you, but was struck for a minute at the rare snapshot in time where I sat sandwiched between my two boys, just the boys for once. 

It is rare for me to sit still like that.  I’m a multitasker to my core, even before motherhood and its infinite tactical demands engulfed every corner of our collective lives.  I know all the rage right now is for us to “be in the moment” and “stay present”, but I’m willing to bet those philosophers and pundits aren’t women with five children, a busy husband running his own business, and a demanding full time job of their own.  But I was, present, in this moment.  And it was lovely.

Clay needed help drawing a singer.  You grabbed your phone and pulled up an example and willingly started sketching.  I kept filling in forms.  Name, birthdate, address, date of graduation.  All the little facts and details moms keep in their hearts.  Had they asked time of birth, first word, favorite toy I could have rattled them off with equal alacrity.  Most of your life to this point is written in my heart, pounded in my brain, will never be erased.  The mundane and practical and the whimsical and beloved.  It’s all there.

At one point, I reached a field that had one long ago day created a bit of contention between us.  “Preferred name,” I asked you.  “Sammy?” I teased.

You dropped your chin and looked at me skeptically.  You stopped answering to “Sammy” sometime around fifth grade.  I knew the day would come and I didn’t fight it hard at the time.  But I noticed and I grieved a tiny bit.  I wonder if you know how many of these moments a mama holds in her heart over the years.  All the moments when you pull away and grow up.  All the moments when you inexorably declare, verbally and through your actions, that you won’t stay mine alone forever.

But this time, you made me laugh.  “Samitron,” you said and flashed your charming, slightly sheepish smile—the one where you know you’re funny and you’re waiting for me to laugh.  “I go by Samitron, now, Mom.”  This little joke delighted me so much.  I’ve retold it multiple times, maybe almost as much as our exchange after you got your orthodontic expander (a story for a later day, and one of my favorites). 

My mind, of course, flashed back to your brief interest in transformers (the cars that become fighting robots) and then whipped back to the present, to the sarcastic and hilarious almost-man before me.  I wonder if you realize how often I whirl between little Sammy and big Sam(itron).  Do you realize how often I look in those big blue eyes and see the mischievous and clever boy you once were?  It’s the mother’s blessing and curse.  This ability to time travel and simultaneously mourn and celebrate the impossibly rapid passage of time.

Sam, Sammy, Samitron—you are so funny.  Your humor and personality are quieter than most of the family, your jokes more subtle and maybe, I admit, a little bit more sophisticated.  This humor is such a gift to us, all the more precious for its very infrequence, the impeccable timing that makes us all pause in surprise, and then laugh heartily. 

Before you go, hold onto that humor.  Share it with the world.  Share it often with me—I enjoy almost nothing more than laughing with you and I think you are funnier than you realize.  It’s a gift that is best shared and will serve you well in your life, now, and in all the years to come.