It's time to go.

60 minutes. One hour. A solid hour. How can something so solid be made of sand?

There was focus and intent.
There were teeth grinding and spoons and buckets and scooping and pouring. For sixty minutes.

I nearly keeled over.

I knew he loved the sand. I mean, I'd seen a bit of it - we'd bought one of those tables but it kept getting drowned by that weather event they call 'UK Summer' (which looks more to me like pissing down rain, but beggars can't be choosers). That sand was played in, but not like this. Nothing remotely like this.

A fair few months ago yet another woman entered our lives for a different purpose altogether and with no business nor qualification suggested we go test for ADHD because Rukai was 'a bit whiny' compared to his peers and didn't focus well on tasks. But wot hey last time I checked, no child with an attention deficit could sit and engage himself with sand for an hour. So there there lovey, off you go, you of the silly person brigade. Take your suggestion, crumple it up with a slab of toilet roll and flush it away, along with my opinion of you (if it can catch up, because that's long gone).

You, too, were wrong. I see a pattern forming here.

But back to today.

Sixty minutes. I may as well have been invisible. He's never sat in solo attention to anything off screen for so long, always wanting to hang out with me, clinging, looking for direction, for suggestion, for a march or a dance or a different episode of Mister Tumble on the box. And as much as I treasure my time with him, my heart has been desperately seeking evidence of his imagination brewing. Great savory chunks of that magical 'pretend play' have eluded us for so long.

But as the time ticked away, me sat there watching him shine, beneath a golden ball doing the same, high above us, here in this thing they call 'Summer' sure as caterpillars eventually grow wings, he sprouted a pair all his own. They were electric, and glittering and too bright to watch but I stared anyway. Gods be damned, I stared and stared.

I imprinted that slap bang on to my retinas so I could pack away that memory beside the rest.
Those memories which explain 'yes I can...you watch me.'
'Yes I can. Yes I am. Yes I will.'

You watch me.

Sixty precious minutes in another one of these fleeting days. These days which are all shockingly short. These days which are dwindling here within that final countdown to 'Big School'.

There is no one ready for that around here.

My heart is in my throat and at the same time below my feet. I trample it daily. I am so afraid for him, for us - that he is not totally ready, that he may be treated badly, that he may be squashed into a corral when he should instead be set free across a wild, grassy range. That he may be marginalized and underestimated and limited. My son is going to start school in under two months. And here I'm only recently elated he's sat for an hour to play in the sand. I'm elated that I've seen his pretend play hit stellar heights all in the space of a few days. From a stint on a local 'beach' earlier this week to this morning's amazing bit of longer play in a half-assed sand pit before brain said 'holy shit, go get a better one, stat - this is important. Just WATCH him think...'

So we went.
And we bought it.
And we set it up.
And he played for an hour.

Why have I only just jigged this?

What else have I missed?
What else will THEY miss?
How in the hell am I going to keep all the communication open enough to enable identification of the passion points? To know where he wants to go...

...if he still cannot speak?

It is on this point which my heart is skewered, every. single. day.

We came in from the sun to dinner. He ate with fervor and there was his favorite show before him. To entertain while I got some head space. Screen time is a necessity in this house. Some lives must have that offer of head space. No shame in this house. Think otherwise? You try living here.

Then the table is pushed away, and now cleared up he takes my hand. No words, but pulling me to the giant drawing pad he's set on the floor. Looking in earnest at the box of pens, I pull it out and he roots around. We work the cap off together and here I draw a circle. This is maybe replay number three of the circle-drawing thing but it hasn't dulled the shine because we are so very much just getting started. He takes the marker off me, touches it to the paper and then he's off.

Round and round and round. That IS the circle of life. That IS everything.

He's done it before but I'm blown away at the fact that I'm seeing him remember that it's something we've done before...I'm seeing depth of understanding and the attribution of purpose to what he is doing.

And I haven't said a damn thing. I just drew a circle.

But there is meaning. This is not scribble.
There is intellect. This is not clueless.
There is ability. This is not hopeless.

There is Rukai. This is not Down's syndrome.

This is Rukai. Drawing me some circles.

So many suggested he wouldn't.
I want to bring him to face them with a pen, to circle them as if with shame.
Look at me! Look what I KNOW! Look what I can DO! Look who I AM!

Look.
Shut up and LOOK.

My mind today, too, is racing in those circles. Round and round.

School coming.
Late milestones.
So much to plan.
So little time left to be 'just us'.
My heart is breaking yet my heart is soaring.
I don't want the time to take my little boy from me, but then again it's not really time taking him away, it's HIM taking himself away. Ahead. Forward. Upward. Onward. I am just a conduit.

And these feelings, like all those other deep emotional experiences I've lived in these short four point five years, these too are just like everyone else's.

A child is born to a mother.
There is love.
A child grows and develops and learns and thrives.
There is love.
A child becomes. A child exists. A child IS.
There is love.

There are so many wishes I have for my son as these days dwindle and our last summer as 'just us' moves further behind before it eventually drops away.

"It's time to go." They said it at the end of the Night Garden show and I burst into tears.

"It's time to go."

So my son, go. But please always make sure I know where you are, and remember I am always here.
Even one day when I am not.
I am always here.

Rukai, I hope that your life is kinder than the world is.
I hope the goodness in you draws goodness TO you.
I hope you know you are my world.
I hope the world knows you ARE.

And you are Rukai.
In sand and in circles and in my heart.
My son. My every wish. My pride and my morning and night and the flame that lights up my soul.

Fly, little man. You go on and soar. Dream big.
I could not - in any plane of existence - be more proud of you.



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