I am trying to do 10 minutes of deep pressure/holding with James each evening. I don’t always feel like following through, but he reminds me. And it’s good for both of us. It’s been two weeks and this pseudo-poem as been swimming in my head lately:

He eagerly scrambles into my arms.
They can hardly hold him anymore.
A boy barreling full-speed ahead toward the teen years.
Proud to be as tall as Mom’s shoulders.

But we have ground to recover.
We must go back before we go forward.
His eagerness reminds me of his toddlerness.
The ruffling of the blond hair.
The holding was necessity then.

But we forgot.
He ran.
He went numb.
He forgot the feeling, the loving.

I try to hold him tight enough.
To squeeze his numbness out.
Feel this holding.
Feel this loving.

You are loved.

And my arms go numb.
Numb with the holding.
Taking on his numbness, I begin to feel less.
He begins to feel more.

It is a daily gospel.
He who takes on our numbness.
So we can feel.
So we know we are loved.