Lift off: Xanthe Alexis

It’s early morning and my house is still except for the sighs of my two sleeping teenage sons. I have been struck, as my oldest prepares to en- ter his senior year, by this one continual thought: please, please, life, slow down so I can savor these moments. This child of mine with hair as orange as the sunrise doesn’t want that though. I watch him feeling his momentum gaining day by day, peering over the walls of the nest I have kept for him for 17 years and getting a glimpse of the big wide open world. His world. It’s not going to slow down. I can’t bargain for more time. This gaining speed is required for lift off and I know it. But here in the quiet of the morning I listen to those sighs pulling in and moving out like waves in the ocean and it feels like hours. Min- utes. Moments. And I vow to this Mother’s heart that it is enough.