A Child Sleeps

Sleep is the closest tranquility to death. I do not wish death and actually never want it associated with my children but the likeness is what amazes me. How, when a child sleeps, it is so undisturbed that nothing can wake it.

My son is four years old. It is summer and he is tanned. He has his father’s dark, light mahogany, polished with gold shimmers, skin. The colour evenly covers his whole body except his middle. He is old enough to be shy and want to wear shorts or swimming trunks. In bed, on crisp, white linen, his whole body looks like coal in snow. My son has blond, curly hair. The kind you imagine on angels. The humidity of the summer evening coils his hair even more. Locks are, it would seem professionally, pasted onto his forehead. He is lying on his back, completely straight. His arms are aligning his upper body and his legs are stretched out in straight lines, just slightly apart, letting the cooler evening air blow over all of his body.

I cannot stop starring. I cannot take him all in. At one time I could, literally. This boy lay inside of me. All of what I see lying in the bed, in a smaller package, was inside of me. I actually cannot grasp that anymore. Whenever I tell him he was inside my tummy he thinks I mistakenly swallowed him.

His face is still baby round but the manly features are showing through here and there. His eyes are narrowed, long, black lashes and strong, nearly bushy eyebrows framing them. The round, glinting cheeks pushing his ever progressing age back a couple of years. Cheeks you want to take hold of between your thumb and forefinger and squeeze. His mouth is more full. He is going to have great kissing lips if he uses them softly, like his father. Relaxed as they are they still pout a little as if he wanted to say something just before falling asleep, but just did not quite get it out.

His chest slowly lifts up and down in a steady rhythm, a tick of a clock that can never stop. The muscles on his upper body are showing through the thin layer of gingerbread coloured skin. The inkling of a man. Sporty maybe? Healthy. Exercised. His hands lying facing upwards. The arms long but his fingers still chubby and round. The same perfect creation they were when he first crunched them together and screamed hello to the world. His legs are inching downwards, yearning for their true length so that he can run as fast as his older brother.

A twitch of his right hand, a small moan and mumble and he turns on his side away from me. I am still locked in my stare but as always I mentally disconnect. I need to finish the washing-up. But he will sleep again, and I will, anew, marvel at my creation.

Sleep well all children of the world.