There isn’t much that tickles my tastebuds with bittersweet longing quite like the flavor of passing time. Especially when it comes to my children.
Over the course of a week, I’d noticed a few of my daughter’s shirts hugging her a little too tightly, a sliver of bare belly peeking out below the hems. They seemingly became smaller right before my eyes, shrinking in the heat of my pensive gaze.
So I purchased a few new tops for her, one size up, and it was official. My little girl had become a big girl, as evidenced by the fact that the next size up could only be found in the “big girls” category of the online department store.
As I purged the outgrown tops from her closet, I held each one up in front of me, examining one after the other for stains and signs of wear.
And each time I felt the pangs of urgency – to hang onto these remnants of her little-girlhood. To hold tightly to the clothes that had hung loosely on my little girl just a few weeks back. To hang onto the snapshots reeling through my mind as I recalled the laughter and tears that had branded these tops. But mostly I felt the need to hold tightly to her.
I barely recognized the clothes that had been worn on a rotating basis. They just looked so small. And when she came into the room, for a moment, I barely recognized her. Because she looked so big.
