Tonight I go to tuck Ezra (7.5) into bed, and there’s a little handwritten note taped to his door that says: “Come in.”
I walk into his room and find him already in his bed, lying there quietly in the dark, waiting for me.
He asks, somberly: “Did you see the note?”
I say: “Yes, I did!”
He says, still serious in tone: “So that’s why you came in?”
I chuckle a little and say: “Yes, that’s why I came in.”
He asks: “Did you see the *first* note I put on my door?”
I say: “No I didn’t. What did it say?”
He responds: “It said: ‘Do not come in.’”
I say with surprise: “Oh! But then you changed it?”
He answers: “Yes.”
He asks, sadly: “If I left the first note on my door would you have just walked away and not tucked me in?”
I say: “Nah… I think I would have knocked on the door, and said: ‘Please oh please can I come in??’”
Ezra giggles, relieved. He hugs me. He says: “Good.”
I ask, sensitively: “But why did you write the note that said to not come in?”
He gets somber again, remembering: “Oh, I was just feeling some sadness and madness about the nectarine.” 😉
Puzzled, not remembering any particular nectarine issues, I say: “The nectarine?”
He sighs deeply, and says with a fair amount of annoyance: “You know. When you said that 3 nectarines was enough for one day? And I wanted to eat another one. And you said no.”
I nod in the dark, cozying up, spooning him, and say: “Oh right. Yes, that was a very sad moment when you wanted another nectarine.”
He sighs again in agreement, saying: “Yes.”
Then he squirms around in my arms, facing me, and says: “Want to sing some Sanskrit?”
I say: “Yes! What shall we sing?”
He’s quiet a moment, considering.
Then says with certainty: “Gayatri.”
So we sing the Gayatri mantra together, maybe about 10 rounds. I notice how sweetly he is singing along; really grasping all the syllables.
At the end, we sing: “Om, shanti, shanti, shanti….”
We lie there together in the nectar and beauty of how the mantra leaves us aglow.
Then I say quietly: “Do you remember why we sing ‘Om Shanti’ at the end of the mantra?”
He says: “No. Why?”
I say: “It means: ‘May all beings in all worlds come to peace.’ Then our prayer goes out to everyone, everywhere.”
He says: “Remember what I wrote in the sand today Mama? With my stick?”
I delightedly remember: “Yes! Did it say~ ‘Peace and Love to all the world’?”
He nods in the dark: “Yep.”
I say: “That was such a beautiful prayer you wrote.”
He adds, with a bit of remorse: “I bet the Mother Ocean already washed it away…”
I say: “I’m sure you’re right. Lucky Mama Ocean.”
He says: “But do you think God read my prayer before it got washed away?”
I’m quiet a moment, curious about this unusual way he is speaking of God.
I say: “I think God reads your prayers all the time, and even in the washing away they are still read.”
He nods in happy agreement.
His eyes are getting heavy. I can see the blinks of his eyelids are lengthening.
I kiss his face tenderly: “Goodnight my Love.”
“See you in the morning Mama…” he says with a sleepy voice.
I whisper: “Yes.” I lift myself up carefully from his bed.
He says: “Mama?”
I say: “Yes, Ezra?”
He says: “Goodnight Mama.”