Godbrother dear

Last night was supper club and Bible study.  We're working on Revelation right now and it is very interesting - if only I could pay attention.  I don't have a book to follow along in and I begin to go crazy just sitting there, so last night, I got out a pattern for a dress I'm working on.

My god-brother Sammy is two and we are thick as thieves.  I was so fond of that little guy, and I'm usually the first person he looks for when he comes over.  Last night, he was running in his bare feet all over my fabric, which I had laid out on the dinning room floor while I listened to the Bible study.  My fabric is white, but I let him.  He calls my name, which he can finally pronounce.  "See!"  And he runs off.  "I'm running!"  "Yes, you are," I say, smiling, and I start pinning the pattern in place.

"Yours?"

"Yes, Sammy, they're mine."

"I do it!"

"Uh-uh, these are pins.  They're too sharp."

"Too shark?  Too shark?"

"That's right.  Nope, don't touch.  Those are sharp and they'll hurt."

"Shark?"

He starts spinning on my fabric.  Not only is he going to ruin my fabric but I can just see him slipping and cracking his head on the floor.  "No no, Sammy.  Hey.  No spinning."  I snap my fingers at him to get his attention.  "No spinning."  Of course he starts again so I scoop him into my lap, point at him, and remind him, "No spinning."  He tilts his head down, looks up through his eyelashes at me, points in my face, and says, "No shpinning."  "That's right, Sammy.  No spinning."  He giggles and repeats it.  So I imitated him.  He erupted in giggles, throwing his head back.  And we went on doing that for several minutes, no doubt distracting some people who were really trying to pay attention to the Bible study.

Sometimes I look ahead to the future.  When I'm thirty, he'll be fifteen.  Someday, I'll tell him about these things and he won't believe it.  Someday, all I'll have are the memories of right now.  I won't race Hess cars with him, won't be able to scoop him up in my arms and tickle him, won't be the person he clings to and depends on when his mother isn't there.  We used to stick our tongues out at each other and now we have "no spinning!"  But a few years from now, he won't know that he ever did these things.  He won't remember screaming bloody murder when we watched 'Monsters Inc', he won't remember his morbid fear of all bugs, he won't remember those late nights when his mother was out and I was patient with him until he fell asleep in my lap.

My mother assures me that I'm building a special bond with him that will never leave us.  But I fear that then I'm thirty, married, and have my own children, we'll never again be as close as now.  I fear that he will acknowledge me as a person but not as a close friend and special person.  I fear that when I come and visit, he'll pay me little attention.  And besides, playing with him now is so easy.  What will we do together years from now?

But whatever does happen, I will always love that little boy.  I adore him so much and I would do anything for him.  He is so happy, so confident, so affectionate and playful.  "Guns?" he says, looking around for my brother.  "Aaron's not home right now.  When he gets home, you can play with the Nerf guns."  "Cars?"  "Sure, we'll go get the cars."  Yesterday, we took turns throwing an invisible ball.  "Here you go," he says, picking up something off the couch and putting it into my hand.  I throw "the ball" across the room.  I give him "the ball".  "Thank you."  "You're welcome, Sammy."  He begs me to share what I'm drinking, takes my hand to look at a monster with him, and leads me to the dinner table.  I shoot him with my fingers and he falls over backwards.  Then he gets up and hits me with a pillow, squealing with delight as I keel over and die.  "Home?  Home?"  "Yes, Sammy, time for you to go home."  And as he holds on to his mother's hand, walking out the door, he looks back and waves and says, "Bye!" and he fumbles with the syllables of my name in his mouth, and it just warms my heart.  I love that little kid.

~Meggy