When I met him, he was... oh, maybe 8.5 lbs.
The first thing he ever did was close his
inconceivably small hand around my baby finger.
As they closed that first time... his eyes opened.
While I know he could only, maybe,
sort'a, see inches before him, I spoke to him...
and I swear he squeezed harder.
Nothing became one.
Cradle became crib.
The floor beside it,
my home away from home...
Sleep overcame me so often there,
and my arm hung from between the bars...
My index-finger a prized possession of a little hand.
Two vanished... so did three... and when
that was done school was ready to begin.
But days turn in to night and just as sure
is the grip on two fingers... and we sleep,
me fitfully on a cold carpet... he, content in his bunk bed.
Now, five years away from the starting gate,
it's my thumb.
He can hold on tight in the deepest of sleeps...
but last night... it slipped out...
... and then he held my hand.
:D