I Will Never Know You Old

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I hang up the phone.

I look out the window.

I notice the tiniest buds on the trees. In New Hampshire, spring is starting to make a case for itself.

I’ve just ordered your birthday cake. Sitting at my desk, I think about all the earlier versions of you. Like pulling a thread, we tumble back together in time.

Middle school, angst and tender tears.

First grade, your face ebullient with joy when you climbed the steps to the “big bus.”

The necklace I wore when you were four. I’d hold it up to you show you the word it spelled in loopy script. Believe.Then fervently I’d whisper a single sentence in your ear, over and over again.

Eventually, we land in the doctor’s office, with his pastel tie and gentle words.

Autism Spectrum Disorder.

And just like that, life became a race against time. Always, I felt a clock strapped to my back. What, exactly, I was racing against remains unclear.

Still, questions linger.

Even now, on the eve of your twenty-second birthday, I wonder what’s next.

What’s next, after the supported community and the job in the grocery store?

What’s next, when I’m gone?

I won’t be there when your hair whitens, or your face grows lined, or your tall frame stoops ever so slightly.

This is a mother’s weight to carry, knowing we can only walk part of your path with you.

With nearly three decades between us, I likely won’t plan much past your fiftieth birthday.

Who will order your cake?

Who will make sure the prescription for your glasses is up to date?

Who will you be?

For now, there are no answers. Perhaps some questions are meant to sit still, on the shelf of our spirit, like a book or a song that has yet to be written. Maybe this is best.

But while the pages and the melody remain a mystery, please know.

Wherever I am—the clouds above, the earth below—I will whisper the words I have always whispered.

Words spelled in silver, in heartbeats, in hope.

Jack.

Jack-a-boo.

Jack-attack.

I believe in you.