I Will Always Be With You

He has a new phrase: “I will always be with you”.

When he says it, he is quiet and centered, strangely introspective – unlike his usual energy-filled self and it means his heart hurts. It means he understands separation and he wants to stay together. But in typical childhood fashion and typical outside-the-box Chase fashion, the words come out differently.

He clutched my hand, fighting the drugged sleep threatening to take over his conscious thought and whisper these words to me – “I will always be with you” – as he went in for his MRI last Monday. But it was the night before that the words first stuck to him and he asked if I would write them out, not for him, but for his siblings. Then he put his head in his hands and sat cross-legged on the kitchen counter, just staring at the part of his heart that they’d discover in his absence the following morning.

The kids fight and squabble, and a good eight out of ten times, this bald boy is the instigator, but in the tense times, they rest in each others arms and love and they write out their love for each other because, well because “I will always be with you”. Somehow, reassurance of presence is, in itself a comfort. And somehow, the not quite sense-making words of his hurting heart are the ones that make the most sense – because he dares to stop, breath deep, and say them aloud.

Don’t miss the opportunities you’ve been given to connect with the ones you love.

~MbM~