The Most Beautiful Thing

I wear a straw hat whenever I’m out walking with the baby. It blocks the sun from my face and, if the angle is right, from his as well. I strap him to my chest with one of those big fabric wraps and shuffle slowly through the neighborhood, enjoying the blossoming trees. The hat was a gift from my father, who has worn straw hats for as long as I can remember. With his round, affable face, he is a man who wears a hat well. I like to think the same can be said about me. I know it is true of my older son, as evidenced by a framed photograph in our living room where he is wearing my straw hat and smiling brightly, looking like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Sometimes when I am out walking, I see a woman in my neighborhood whose dog looks exactly like my old dog, a dog whose photos still pepper the rooms of my house. We have not put up any pictures of the new dog. We have not put up any pictures of the new baby yet either.

I like to pretend that this woman’s dog is my dog, that he died and was reincarnated as a slightly different version of himself—a little bit redder, a little less fluffy, with a head that is not quite as comically large. I like to think he came back to be near us, to keep an eye on us. To give us the gift of checking in on him.

“I like your hat,” the woman says to me as we pass each other on the sidewalk.

“I like your dog,” I reply. I want to ask her how he is doing. Does he still have that heart problem? Is she monitoring it closely? Is he stiff in the mornings? Does she rub his legs to help him get moving, to ease his discomfort? Take him in for extra vet checkups, I want to warn her. Something is growing in his gall bladder. Something you can’t know is there until it’s too late. Take him in now while he’s perfectly healthy. Make them do imagining. Make them find it early. Keep him alive, I want to say. Keep him alive so I can keep seeing him.

I’m pretty sure this woman’s dog is female.

The baby looks so much like his older brother when he was a baby. It’s a bit odd, really, the feeling of deja vu I get whenever I look down at his sweet little baby face. It’s like a time travel trick where I’m parenting my older son in both his infant and six-year-old forms at the same time. I want to call my son’s attention to it—look, this is how I rocked you when you were crying, this is how I sang over the sound of your screams, this is how I kissed your belly at the end of every diaper change, this is how I cared for you, this is how I loved you—but I don’t, because no two children are ever parented in the exact same way, and I feel a bit guilty that the new baby is getting the better version of me. Sure, he will have to share more of my time and attention where his big brother didn’t, and we’ll forget to note milestones and fail to celebrate every small leap in his early development the way you do with your first child when everything feels new and special. But he is getting a calmer, more knowledgeable set of parents. Six years of parenting have taught me what to focus on and what to let go of, how to move on from a tough day, how to bail out early when my approach is clearly not working, how to celebrate the simple pleasure of a long walk on a nice day when the baby otherwise refuses to nap, instead of seeing it as a mark of failure, an inability to get the baby to sleep where and how he’s supposed to. I’ve learned how not to be so shackled by “supposed to.” How to not care so much about whether other people think I’m a good mother. How to barely care what other people think at all.

This baby fusses less than his brother did (or perhaps I’m not as bothered by fussing as I used to be) and he settles more easily (or perhaps I am more adept at calming babies now and can more easily recognize his cues). He has slotted into our lives with the ease of a corner puzzle piece—it is very clear how he fits in with the rest of us and provides a sense of closure. I’m looking forward to seeing his personality develop and how it diverges from his brother as he grows and changes. And I’m looking forward to seeing how they grow together, how the identity of “brother” takes shape for each of them. This is the truly fantastic part of parenting: watching someone become themself and getting to be alongside for that discovery.

The top of my six-year-old’s head is now level with my armpit. He measures this frequently. It won’t be long before he is as tall as my mother. And not too long after that until he is taller than me. It takes forever and it goes so quickly. Both things are true. I see him in the present as the kind, tender little boy he is, and I see him in the past as the baby reflected in his little brother, and I can picture him in the future, towering over me, leaning down to hug me, wrapping me up in his long, wiry limbs.

It is strange how all the different versions of ourselves both disappear and exist forever. My mother looks at pictures of the new baby and she sees my face, my baby face, and I can imagine that, for a moment, she can feel the weight of me in her arms again.

Apparently, I looked like my father when I was a baby. I look like my father when I’m wearing my straw hat.

I tell the woman “I like your dog,” and then I reach down to pet his head, three hearty taps and then a quick scratch behind his ear. “Good boy,” I say, and then I smile and let them walk away, let the dog that is not my dog disappear around the corner, out of sight.

When the baby starts to stir against my chest I get moving again, letting my steps gently lull him back to sleep. As we turn onto a new block, the sun’s angle to us shifts and light floods his face. I take off my hat and hold it over his head as if he were wearing it. The brim creates a wide circle of shade. His eyes are closed and his lips are slightly parted. He looks like his brother. He looks good in this hat. He looks like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

My poem, “September Again,” about the death of my dog is now available in the aptly titled The Dead Pets Poetry Anthology. Net proceeds from each purchase of this anthology will be donated to ASPCA.

If you’d like to read more about all the dogs I’ve known and loved in my life, check out A History of Dogs, originally published in Bandit.

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