Life With Ferris: Glimpses Into The People I Love

One of my sons recently headed out West for a while. He’s near the Grand Canyon, and can walk a not-so-well known trail on the north rim every day. 

Of all my sons, this one is the most independent of me. He has never been clingy. On the first day of kindergarten years ago, he walked in ahead of me, hung his backpack on a hook and never once looked back at me.

When he was in elementary school, we went on vacation together, just the two of us with other moms and sons, and I'd always hoped for some bonding time with him. When other little boys slipped in their mother's beds during a thunderstorm, or for no reason except they needed their mother, I was jealous. Even when my friends rolled their eyes at their crowded bed and lack of privacy, cajoling their sons to go back to their own beds, I felt a longing for their dilemma.

Decades ago, my mother, my sister and I went to the beach with my niece and this son. Right off the bat, my little boy claimed a room for his cousin and himself. She looked at him like he was crazy and said she and her mother were taking the master suite. Reluctantly, he dropped his bag in my room.

The first night, we each sat up in our twin beds reading. This simple act gave me immense pleasure for some reason. When I turned off the light, I heard a little voice ask, "Mom? I can't sleep. I need a story."

And so I told him about how I got the scar on the back of my calf and how my sister had to go into the operating room with me because my father couldn't stand the sight of blood.

The next night, a few minutes after we turned off the light, he asked for another story. I told him about our Christmas dinners at my grandmother's, how my grandfather would take us out to the woods to explore while my grandmother grated and sauteed and baked in the kitchen. He'd always top off our outing with a campfire and marshmallows so that we were sickly full for the feast she'd spent days preparing.

I think about the stories my parents told me about their childhoods, about my mother racing the train on horseback every afternoon after school, and how even though she never met the conductor, the long waves they exchanged made her feel like they were friends. I think about my father as an only child, standing the kitchen sink full of suds and thinking it was a treat to get to do the “silvers,” his word for silverware.

These little tales are glimpses into the people I love more than anything, but did not know when they were young.

The last night at the beach, I racked my brain for a story, for something interesting in  my childhood. Just as we crawled into bed, there was a thunderstorm that seemed to center at our exact location. The rain was torrential and unrelenting, and the thunder boomed so hard the walls seemed to vibrate. The story came easily. I told the story of a terrifying storm when I was little, how I’d crept downstairs and  my father read “Peter Pan” to me by candlelight during a tornado. 

Thunder crashed and our room at the beach and flashed with blue light. My baby crawled into my bed. I cradled him in my arms and smelled the fresh-cut hay scent of his hair. When I felt his body go heavy with sleep, I touched the soft curve of his cheek, the only sign left of the babyhood he'd outgrown, and relished this rare moment of my boy needing his mother.

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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series. “Making Arrangements” is her first novel, and the ebook is on promotion until April 7. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. Her website is ferrisrobinson.com and you can download a free pollinator poster there. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.