Wearing Chains

I slip the chain over my head and let it fall into place on my chest between my breasts. I yelp and wide eyed I say, "it's cold!" Buddy grins and says, "yeah, but you'll get used to it mom" as he pats my shoulder with a hand that is now bigger than my own.

We are standing in the hallway outside the bathroom and Buddy has just given me the necklace that he wears 24/7 . It is dog-tag style, a long stainless steel beaded chain with two stainless steel ovals that now hang right into the niche of my decollatage. One silver oval is solid save for the Cross stamped clear through it. The second silver oval, lying snug back to front with the first one has words engraved on it: "baptized 9/3/06".

Buddy is looking at me as I adjust to the feel of the cool silver cord on my chest, under my white mock neck sweater. His eyes, my eyes, are clear and clean and steady. I smile my best smile at him, all the while desperately telepathing a prayer to God, to the angels, to any gentle and kind spirits of this world we inhabit. Lord, keep him safe in your care, keep his body in your hands and his spirit in your counsel. Lord be with him in the dark of night and the light of day, in the waters and the mountains and in the cabins. Lord, let him return to me to take back this chain and wear it once again... In a few hours I will be setting my baby boy free to the care of a camp, camp counselors, and other feral boy-man compadres for a whole 13 days.

My Buddy has never spent much time away from me. He's been to preschool. He's had the occasional babysitter. He ONCE spent 4 days, with both of his sisters, at his grandparents when he was 6. 6. That was 5 years ago. He does the occasional sleepover. And I do mean occasional. Only at one boys house -his buddy "Patch" that he's known since preschool. Two nights ago, for the first time ever, he spent the night at his other buddy's house whom he's known since he was in diapers. Why the infrequency? My Buddy is a sleepwalker.

When he was 4, I found him in the middle of our driveway one summer night at about 10:30 PM in his little BVD's. Once we woke up in the morning to the little wicker basket of TV remote controls tucked into the fridge, another time to Buddy sleeping in his closet, yet another to find him wandering into his sisters room "for a chat" of which he has no memory. Two years later, after multiple sleepwalking incidences, we heard our front door deadbolt sliding open and after bolting upright and realizing it was 2 AM, we ran down the stairs of our new house to find Buddy about to head out into less than 30*twilight in his pj''s. He walks sometimes as often as 4 times a week, sometimes it will be weeks in between walking. We now have top safety latches at all exterior door, windchimes wrapped around Buddy's bedroom door knob, and keep an infant safety gate safely secured in his doorway.

On a busy week we are woken by the sound of door chimes ringing or the safety gate crashing to the floor and we rush to guide Buddy back to bed, sometimes he mutters incomprehensible words or he cries because he's cold or he wakes up confused and frightened. We never sleep easy. Now I have sent him into the New Hampshire Wilderness with only a yurt and a handful of hearty young men-boys playacting as "counselors" to keep my beloved boy safe. What was I thinking?

Was I thinking of a healthy robust 11 year old boy getting to play with sharp objects and fire without a squeamish mommy holding him back? Was I thinking perhaps of a soon-to-be-teen-needing-a-rite-of-passage getting to hike out for 3 days and carry his own pack and cook his own food and learn his own strengths? Was I maybe considering a boy, whose own daddy spent every single summer away at camp, getting to experience something he could share with his dad? Was I maybe wondering if my little Buddy, my throws-his-clean-clothes-in-the-dirty-laundry-hamper could survive figuring out what was clean and what was dirty and when to change his undies could manage to figure out that the clothes packed neatly in zip-loc baggies were clean and the undies on the floor were dirty? I certainly was thinking that.

What I wasn't thinking of was the feeling of utter loss I would feel as my Buddy hugged me goodbye and pressed his little brown face and wavy brown hair into my chest, searing the stainless steel dog-tag of his salvation into my skin. I wasn't thnking of how not speaking to him for 13 days would scar me, make me bleed, and change me... as surely as it will change him.

I will wear my Buddy's dog-tag salvation necklace with grace and dignity, with love and confidence, with prayer and hope, and with joy. I will wish for him to come home safe and wear it again, but I will never forget the feel of the cold stainless steel warming slowly against my own skin... much as I remember his wet slippery newly born body against my own.