Crow Chasing Butterfly

“No bee! My mommies’ flowers! You need to go away!”

His little laugh is like sunshine. His wild blonde hair and big blue eyes give him an angelic appearance and his muddy overalls and the little hound dogging his footsteps makes him look like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. I didn’t know life would change so much when his little feet toddled into mine.

“Papa! I can’t fight all the bees there’s too many!” His sword was swinging wildly through the air knocking petals off of more than one flower. His grandmother is going to be upset about her flowers but she’ll never say. We spoil him I suppose but who would want to disappoint that precious face?

It’s strange. I still have the urge. Not strong, but there. Inevitable I suppose. Still – have to be careful now that I have a family again. Watching my grandson fight his battle of the bees and that silly puppy nipping at the air right alongside him reminds me of when his mother was that young, her hair just as light and fair and eyes as bright and blue and her adventures through the backyard bushes and trees just as interesting. So alike and yet so different. I never thought I would be here again. This beautiful little boy brings back memories of my first. I try to quell those thoughts. It was so long ago I had hoped I would have forgotten his face by now but no.

“Ow.”

Little tears. His sword was lost in the garden, his hat askew and salt tears rolling down his sweet ruddy cheeks as the dog yipped and jumped at him. I hurry to him. My knees are popping, my hips hurt and my back is sore and I realize that I don’t want to be this age much longer. “Are you okay my little fighter?”

He’s quietly sobbing and all I can look at are the tear tracks on his precious cheeks and I know Cynthia is watching from the kitchen window and I know that even though I hate the aging process I will do anything to be with my family. There’s only so much time I get to spend with them before they move on and I have to go and start over again. I wipe the dirt and tears from his face.

“One of the bees got me papa.” He shows me the red sting and it looks angry and swollen already.

“That’s okay champ. Papa can make the pain go away.” I put my hand over the spot and send some of my energy to him. Not too much but enough to heal his small arm. “See there? All gone.”

He nodded and scratched the spot. It always itches when I heal too. “Come on champ, I bet gramma has some cookies waiting for you in the kitchen.”

I stand and for the first time I feel strange with my heart racing and my skin heating up. I feel like fainting but I hold it together – maybe if I can just get to a chair?

“It’s okay papa.” His tiny body clings to mine and he wraps his arms tightly around me. “You didn’t have to give me any. I could have healed myself, I forgot I could. Here, you need it more than I do.”

Then it hits me. A tsunami of power so strong and invigorating and unlike anything I have ever felt before. It is pure like him. The most honest gift I could receive. “How did you do that?” I feel like I could run twenty miles. I definitely have the urge to show my wife how young I feel tonight. I wonder how many years that hit took off?

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

I kneel down and hold him tighter and try to decide if I am happy or if I feel like crying. This way of life is hard and now my grandson is going to have to live it. How could he possibly be so much like me? Would my first child or his children have been the same? There’s so much he needs to know and it’s not something I want him going through alone. The mistakes I made haunt me every day and after so many lifetimes the mistakes add up.

“Papa.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Don’t be nervous.”

“You can see that too?” I smile because I finally have someone who can understand. “Can you tell why?”

“No but maybe you need a cookie?”

Those blue eyes are watching me from under his yellow tuft of hair and I smile bigger. “Yes, I could use a cookie.”

He’s got such a long life ahead and I’ll be there every step of the way but right now I get to enjoy having a cookie with my grandson.