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Felix.  The name means “happy, joyful, lucky, successful”.  We really didn’t have a name in mind when he tumbled out onto the bed, after a speedy, ecstatic party of a birth.  I remember being stunned by his exquisite beauty.  Those eyes, that plummy mouth, his delicate little nose.  We all adored him right from the very beginning; before the beginning; forever.

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For the past several months, Felix has been proudly telling everyone he meets, with fingers outstretched, “I am two years old!  Next birthday, I’ll be three!”.  Several times a day, he asserts, often out of the blue, that “I’m big.  Mum, I’m really big you know”.  Yes you are sweetheart.  You’re big and little, and you’ll always be my sweet little baby.

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This whole seeing one’s children grow up is a tough one.  Since, oh, last Christmas, Felix has been talking about wanting a chocolate-chip cake, with candy canes, and ice-cream for his birthday, and to go to Evandale.  I did make an honest effort to find organic candy canes in August, but to no avail.  So I did break down and buy fruit-juice lollipops, and I made a grain-free chocolate chip cake, and we had goat’s milk ice cream.  The truth is, my kids have such limited encounters with ice cream, that the goat’s milk variety doesn’t yet register as “different”.  I have another couple of years of that, perhaps.

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Felix received some new books, new pencil crayons and a paint set, a lovely baseball mitt and baseball from Gramy and Grampy, and a new owl backpack with a soft blanket that folds up into a little soft suitcase (or pillow).  We will be travelling to Vancouver soon, and Felix, of all the kids, likes to stay home.  Even on overnight trips lately, he will, when overtired, burst into tears and demand to be returned home immediately.  He exudes sweetness, goodness, kindness.  He is concerned about others, and gentle with the animals.  He’s wonderful.

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After we had cake and presents at home, we drove down the road to the Evandale resort, which is, after the Queenstown wharf across the street from our house, our second-favourite place to swim.  Maybe he was feeling the weight of his years, but Felix was somewhat more pensive and quiet than usual.  Time flows, but the meaning we place on its passage is the meat of it.  I watched him, watching the other children splashing in the pool, and I tried to sear the image of his beauty into my mind.  Please please please let me keep at least my memory of this little one, like this, in his golden little-boy loveliness, forever.  Not to be.  Instead, I have this one perfect present moment.  Felix.

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