The Spot

Under a dark sky, with the sun still asleep, I cradle my weary body into the hug of my plush cushioned chair with my newborn son in my arms. As he nurses, I just stare down as his chest rises and falls with the miracle of breath.

At just a few weeks old he seems to know my heart, and his tiny fingers softly press into my waist. A hug.

Always a kid to say thank you at exactly the moment it will melt your heart, as a young mother I imagined this was his way of thanking me. I would feel the tiny tips of his fingers on my side, his arm slightly arc in, and I knew. I would kiss the top of his head and as if to say, silently, “you’re welcome.”

This would become our linkage. Soft, gentle, knowing, connected without actually saying a word.

He rests on the pillow as I inspect every millimeter of this small miracle that was so close to being ripped from my body so many times over the past eight months. Did I will him into being? Or was he such a fighter, such a focused spirit, and so connected to me that he performed this miracle of survival all by himself?

I do believe in the energy of the universe, and I believe deeply in my own ability to manifest just about anything into existence, but the more I know my son, the more I believe deeply that no one can will him to do anything that he doesn’t already want to. He wanted to be here. And he chose us, he chose me.

I lean down to kiss the deep brown birthmark next to his right eye as he lays with his left ear on the pillow. It is just one centimeter from the outward corner, exactly where the smiling lines will crease in time.

I often wonder what it will look like when the lines come, and they will, for this boy of mine is a light of joy. I’ve been kissing that mark now for over 14 years. Everything around it has shape shifted, but not fundamentally changed – though I know he feels like it has been a radical change, and I’m sure for a boy in the depths of puberty each day feels like an alien took over. But, to me, it is actually gradients of the same, with that beautiful deep brown birthmark as the anchor – and I kiss it every chance I get.

When I lean in to kiss that spot – my spot, because, as I always remind him, I made it! – I put my arm around him and snuggle in, if only for a minute, and the warmth radiates from my heart through my entire being.

When he leans in to hug a grandparent or to hold a girlfriend’s hand, I see us in that chair. It’s the place where the ability to love began and where his nature was first revealed.

I love to kiss the soft spot between his ever-more-defined jawline and his collarbone. I sneak in to kiss that soft spot both because I fit there and because when I do so it seems to always trigger him wrapping his arm around me, the exact same way he did when I would feed him as an infant.

I still love to kiss the top of his mop of gorgeous, shiny brown hair. I inhale him as I softly peck the top of his head. He’s taller than me now and I need to prop up a bit on my tippy toes and tilt his head gently toward me with my palm. People talk about the scent of babies – the tops of their heads that exude that downy-like aroma. But I’ve fallen in love with the scent of adolescence: a mix of hair product, sweat, Calvin Klein Eternity and subtle notes of my baby’s unique pheromones.

Bearing witness to a daughter’s natural evolution is somewhat more palpable for a mother in its familiarity and shared lived experience. Watching one’s son shape shift from boy to man is akin to witnessing Bruce Banner morph into the Incredible Hulk, but then you realize that despite the biceps and six pack, the more apt cinematic metaphor is Josh Baskin in Big, waking up one day to find his sweet young soul in a much older man’s exterior, bumbling through his new life, very much in need of his mom.

Mornings when he stumbles out of his room in his pajamas and adolescent haze, my breath catches. I try to dis