The Most Important “Firsts”

by L. Orraine

I didn’t get to swaddle you or rock you to sleep. I didn’t watch your first steps or hold back tears on your first day of school. I don’t know who your first crush was or who your best friend in the third grade was. I became your mom when you were 12. I think a part of me loved you from the moment I saw your picture. An angelic face surrounded by dark rings of curls. I saw a young man, still a boy, who needed a mom, needed someone to care for him and help him grow into adulthood. As the matching process continued, I resigned myself to accepting that your firsts were over. You were already in school. You had friends, life experiences and memories that didn’t include me. I suppose a part of me grieved that. I often wondered how it would be, to start in the middle. Was it even possible to start in the middle?

One day you were finally home with me. We were essentially two strangers though, sitting across from each other at the dinner table. You being there showed me the incredible amount of trust you had placed in me. This beginning was also an ending. The huge weight of this was not lost on me. A12-year-old boy and a 40ish year-old woman do not always have much in common. Yet we were no different. I tried my best to create an environment where we could become closer.

One day we had a Nerf battle in the living room. How we didn’t break anything I will never know! We laughed and laughed and then you told me how much fun that had been. You said that you had never done that before. I don’t think there was a specific moment where I realized it but eventually, I saw all the pieces of our new life together with great clarity. The firsts in your life were far from over. I was with you when you picked out a fresh Christmas tree for the first time, you were so excited. I was there to see your first medal win in a sports tournament. I taught you how to fish. Your first time staying up until midnight on New Year's Eve was with me. I shared your excitement when you went to your first dance and the first time you went to the movies with friends. You had never carved a Halloween pumpkin before. I changed my wording and my way of thinking about “firsts”. When our little family took our first vacation and stayed in a hotel this was a brand new first for us both. This was something we were doing TOGETHER for the first time. We went to drive ins, spent a summer trying to visit as many beaches as possible, decided pie could sometimes be eaten for breakfast. We started new traditions. We went on day trips and road trips just to see places we had never been together.

I recently had the privilege of wishing you, my sweet boy, a Happy 18th Birthday. We have navigated first time driving, first dates and your first job. As I look to the future the list of firsts seems endless. One day you will have your first car, first apartment and first grown-up job. I hope you find love and perhaps you will get married, maybe even become a parent. Life is long. I am so incredibly grateful to have been here for so many of your firsts and in my heart, they have felt like the most important ones. 

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