Who Will Take Care of Me?

Full of youth, questions, reasons... he traces my face swerving the pad of his finger in a figure-eight. Up, around and over my eye down through my nose, then up and around the other eye and back again all over. Tucking his lower lip, blinking faster than normal to prevent tears, eyes welling anyway, we are nearly nose to nose. I encourage him to cry.

" Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape...not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago." - C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

 His question, "Mommy who will take care of me if you and Daddy die?" 

Why such a question? The inevitable of what he sees daily rushes in.
Plants thrive then wilt. Animals live and animals die. His healthy boy-body grows weak with chilled- hot fever. A knee hits pavement and pain follows instantly. Our nighty-year old neighbor works hard to walk, to hear, to see. Brother punches, pinches, pulls hair and he returns the favor.
Sin, death, the Fall,  it's all over us.
He has seen his aunt Hay Hay lower into the ground and he's drawn deep tears at the missing of her. The sorrow his Mommy walked, still walks, he has lived beside me in it. Never wanting this for him, doing all I can to Mommy him, love him, show him trust in God in the unknown, the grief, the pain, the joy-gladness even. 

Still tracing my silhouette brow, I share all I know to say,
"YOU, are SO special."... His lip tucks harder.
"YOU are SO important to me.".... his eyes drip tears, mine fill.
"I'm SO happy God gave me YOU" .... little finger trace harder.
"I love you SO much."

Holding each other the way Mamma's and little boys do, teary-eye to teary-eye -- we both know.
We both know in this very moment we grieve the unknown.
Together. 
And we know that this is why the tears flow and that this is why we hold each other to sleep.