The Oregonian August 28, 2008
MY TURN
As son prepares to leave, kisses get more precious
In our house, kisses run free. Hugs, too. Since the beginning, kisses and hugs have punctuated our family conversations. Our babies got raspberries on their tummies, warm benedictions on top of their soft heads, cascades of all-over kisses.
As toddlers, they learned how far the power of kisses could reach. Bedtime kisses were reinforced by ones blown from the doorway. They didn’t even know about the kisses we sent gently floating into the dark rooms when we checked on them late at night.
They went off to preschool with fingers closed tightly around portable kisses we placed in their palms. On the playground, all owies got kissed to make them better before my kids ran off again to play.
Of course, the teenage-year kisses have been more discreet. Even when public kisses were completely forbidden by my two teens, the power of a kiss as a true expression of love was not lost on them.
On rare occasions, I would do something so valued and appreciated that I would be rewarded with a kiss on the cheek and maybe even a hug, if we were in a shopping center or restaurant –never at school.
Over 18 years, I didn’t count the kisses. But in the past few months, I have started to feel some anxiety about them. I see the number of kisses as finite, and I picture all the kisses of a child’s lifetime in one huge jar, like the jars of jelly beans in guessing games at school fairs. As if, when each child is born, we are issued our jar, and for all these years we have been greedily, joyfully grabbing handfuls of kisses without a thought.
My son is going to college this fall. I am happy about this. He is even happier. It is, by all standards of achievement, a Very Good Thing. But this wonderful new stage will put the long distance power of kisses to a new test. This is not a play date across the street. This is across the country. This is New York City.
And so I find myself paying attention to the kisses again. I make sure not to waste kiss opportunities. The jar is looking nearly empty, but these are the sweetest kisses yet. I station myself at the front door before he leaves so as not to miss a single one.
I realize he is aware of the jar, too. He seeks me out at bedtime, stooping to peck my cheek or leaning across the seat before jumping out of the car. Together we are vigilant. No kiss unturned, no kiss unaccounted for, no kiss left behind.
As he prepares to leave and I prepare to let him go, I try to engrave his face in my memory as I have done at so many other stages in his life. I conjure up images of the baby, the toddler, the boy and now the man. As each phase has ended, something special has begun. I can put that childhood jar of kisses on the shelf in his room, knowing I will find kisses packaged in other ways in this new adventure ahead.
I imagine care-package kisses, carefully tucked among brownies and chocolate chip cookies. There will be e-mail kisses sent through cyberspace, and if I can ever learn to type with my thumbs, there will be text kisses as well. While he no doubt has visions of a new world of seductively wrapped kisses coming his way, I focus on vacation trip home kisses, accompanied by big bear hugs.
How silly of me to think that kisses could ever be finite and contained in a jar. Once they are let loose, they go out into the world to work their magic. With a last goodbye kiss, I will send my son out to work his.
Ellen Hall Saunders is a writer living in Cedar Mill with her husband, their 14-year-old daughter and, for a few more days, their 18-year-old son.
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