Final Act

August 27, 2015

Written by Marykate O’Malley, mother of three wonderful children, Gladwyne PA

And with that, summer was over. The screen door snapped shut, the last popsicle snatched from the freezer, the cicadas hum turned down another notch every evening. No line at the deli counter in town, the parade of bikes and strollers down main street slowed to a hum. A few stragglers remained, the Irish goodbye as my uncle would say, lingering with longing. And I think how all of life moves this way, fleeting, and seasonal, and when it’s over, it’s over and only the whisper of a ghost remains.

I had my daughter here at 4 weeks. And everywhere I turn I see a newborn, delicate, tiny and new, and here this girl stands before me. On the brink of adolescence, starting Middle School. I turned to pour a glass of milk, looked away to check the time, to start the car, to make a sandwich and the baby was gone, the girl remains. Chestnut hair, freckles dancing across the bridge of her nose, eyes that shine like stars.

Like the stars we saw on the beach last night, under a full moon watching Into the Woods. The last movie of the season they announced. And my son, turning back to drink in the moon illuminating the pier, a perfect haloed path across the water from moon to shore. My son who looks up at the stars burning above him, and understands there is more to see on the beach at night than a movie when the moon is full and round.

And my youngest, chirping, tell me about when you were a little girl. What is there to say. A simpler life, when children were children, wild and free – riding bikes, and climbing trees, bringing home frogs and tadpoles and secret clubhouses without parents at the door asking what are you doing in there. There was a tree house with a sign “No Girls Allowed” and I wasn’t considered a girl, an honor I wore with pride. And the beach. I played in the dunes, singing songs and dancing while by brothers jumped the waves. Today there are signs and do not enters. On the rocks at The Point my son on the jetty among mussels, and shells and mossy green that climbs and clings to rocks, free in the salt air and wide expanse of sea and sky – “you can’t go past the sign” the other boy said pointing up, ending the Peter Pan moment. The book snapped shut, the moment was over, he read the sign, and retreated.

I turned to pour a glass of milk, and the baby was gone.

Let me hold this girl. Let me hold these days, hold each child. For the movie ends, the chapter closes, the screen door snaps shut, and the season is over. Only love, only the ghost of the memory remain.