Five Years With You
Yesterday, my son turned five.
Five.
That small, round word I used to think belonged to other people’s children. Older ones, school-aged ones, big-kids. And yet here we are. Five.
Five years of his laughter echoing through the house.
Five years of watching him see the world in his own radiant way.
Five years of learning how to be his mother.
The days were long.
But the years? Somehow already gone.
It went quickly. And slowly. And beautifully.
Like water through fingers, like light shifting across a room.
I’ve been thinking about who I was the day I first met him. How much I didn’t yet know. Not just about parenting, but about presence. About pacing. About how to love someone who doesn’t meet the world the way books or strangers said he would. How to stop listening to the world, and start listening to him.
He is nonspeaking, full of sound and wonder and light.
He communicates in motion, in music, in glances that carry galaxies.
He uses his AAC device more now, and I listen with all of me.
And every day, I understand him a little more.
He loves space. The moon, the stars, anything far away and glowing.
He notices the small things: patterns, shadows, details others skip.
He plays in the dirt and finds joy without asking for it.
And what a gift it is, to see the world through his eyes.
Not rushed. Not crowded.
Just alive, in its own time.
Five years ago, I thought parenting would be more about teaching.
But it turns out, it’s about noticing.
Staying.
Adapting.
Loving without needing to be mirrored.
Yesterday, we celebrated his way.
There was no cake. He doesn’t like cake.
There were cookies. And French fries.
There was tickling, and laughter, and the swing.
The trampoline. The sandbox.
And a little time playing in the dirt.
No big party. No loud chaos.
Just joy, in the shape of him.
I don’t need anyone else to understand the beauty of who he is.
I just need to keep showing up for it.
Keep choosing slowness when the world says speed.
Keep trusting that love doesn’t have to be spoken to be deep.
Five years ago, he changed everything.
And slowly, beautifully, I’ve changed too.
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