‘it’s like liquid sunshine,’ i tell him, dripping vitamin d into his bow-lips catching dribble with the edge of his bib and he stares out the kitchen window, giggles as morning mist rises like angels across the lawn. i brush his two teeth, wash sleep from his eye and then we sit, read his poetry bible and i show him a picture of family.
“mommy, daddy, aiden” i say, pointing to the page in the bible and he grabs the end of his bib and stuffs it into his mouth and then i kiss his baby cheek and hold him close thinking there’s nothing to safe-keep this moment. no photograph or video which can remember the smell of infant skin.
this, our morning routine, which starts after i’ve poured my coffee and aiden begins talking in his bedroom down the hall. and i let him talk, babble to his imaginary friends in his bassinette while his daddy and i make morning matter across the kitchen table with toast and coffee and grown-up bibles. then, it’s aiden time until he goes down for nap and i think, what would i do without this community?
thinking back to the other day when trent was opening a bag of milk, and speaking of hell. “i think hell is a place where you have no one,” he said in his man-boy voice. “you’re alone with your thoughts, day in and out. hell is a place without community.”
and i sit now watching my baby bang his leg up and down like a drum in his vibrating chair, chuckling at the ceiling tiles and saying words that sound like ‘mom’ and i think, if hell means no community, then this must be heaven.
