I Smelled My Son’s Hair and Had to Turn Away

Dear Delyara, He leaned against me while I was zipping his coat. Just for a second. Long enough for me to catch that clean, warm, slightly sweet smell children have after a shower and too much shampoo and one day closer to not needing you this much. I had to turn away so fast he probably thought I was looking for his lunchbox. Because that smell broke something open in me. It reminded me how temporary all of this is — the little shoulders, the easy leaning, the body that still assumes my body is home. One day he will smell like aftershave and errands and a life I can’t enter without permission. He was asking me if it was too cold for shorts. I was in the kitchen swallowing back tears over the smell of his hair. Motherhood is humiliating like that. It makes ordinary things unbearable.