My Little Boy After All

Originally, there were two. 

There were two, for one tiny little baby with spindly arms and legs sprawled in the heated bassinet of a Jacksonville hospital neonatal intensive care unit. Each morning after crossing the street from the Ronald McDonald House where I spent the night before, I replaced the soft, quirky donkey next to our premature newborn son. The other would return to sleep with me, theoretically absorbing my scent to gently imprint this new mother's aroma on his little brain and heart.

Seventeen years later, he still kept it next to his bed until the day he departed Chile. 

That day, as we unloaded his bags in the parking lot of the Diego Aracena International Airport outside Iquique, he reached into the trunk to unzip his suitcase a final time. My eyes fell on a familiar object carefully tucked inside. One soft, quirky donkey peeked out at the tall, gangly boy in the sunshine. I didn't quite cry, but I won't deny this mother's heart jumped at the sight and the million memories with it. And then I smiled at the tenderness of knowing this big boy will always be my little boy after all.