a whole hand

Dear Hank,

You are such a sunny boy, bearing bad news with signature good humor (which we've all come to rely on a little too heavily this year, I'm afraid). You are like a prism, gathering and refracting all the best the rest of us don’t send directly to each other, the love and astonishment and delight. 

I tell people all the time: You are the most joyful human I know. 

Five years with you and we’ve smiled in so many new ways. Every word you speak comes individually wrapped. What a pleasure it's been, playing parental detective, noticing all the new things you've shown us and listening to you narrate so many successes. 

You learned to read this year, and I don't know why I felt surprised that it could never not be amazing to watch. You're learning to play the piano, too, picking out melodies on your own by ear and happily following facetime instruction.

If you're not counting by nines or adding thirty three plus forty four, you are adding to the grocery list: cheese, ice cream, whipped cream, the basics.

You list friends, many whom you haven't seen in months, on fingers that have begun to lean out. You wander the house on your tallest tiptoes, telling stories at pretty much constant full volume. Your body is almost always moving, up and down like a fiddler's elbow. 

My hope is that you forever refuse to diminish yourself, even if you sense that your impulses are not compatible with suburban niceties. Watching you blow out five candles today, I felt myself wishing right along, that you would be who you would be, that you would be happy.

You are like a rainbow incarnate, Hank, and I love you more than all the stars in the sky.

Mom