A refreshing breeze blows through the living room windows. The air soothes as it sings a hushed melody into the quietness. Tranquility.
My young adult son is napping on the couch while I tap away on my laptop a few feet away. No one speaks. But that doesn’t mean connection isn’t at works. My mind quickly brings up memories of other moments like this. Long ago.
Much appears differently now. My son’s body on the couch now takes up the length of all three cushions instead of one or two. He is a young adult. Instead of reading way too familiar beloved books in bed before falling asleep, we talk here. About all kinds of things.
Keeping vigil by my son’s bedside used to happen often. Many scenarios beckoned my presence. Sometimes nightmares interrupted a peaceful sleep. Symptoms of illness suddenly began ravaging through his body. Fears of upcoming, lack of life experience future events loomed large and needed attention.
None of these situations appear right now.
But the sacred nature of our bond feels just as intimate. Neither the change in his age nor the distance between us can squelch it. I wouldn’t have envisioned these kind of unexpected moments when he was young. I thought distance, both figuratively and geographically, would change a lot of our relationship. As it turns out, some things stay the same. They just look differently.
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