When I Grow Up

Nadian Jahanbin

Staff Writer

I waved goodbye as I swarmed into a small sea of strangers eagerly waiting for instruction,

determined to decipher our teacher’s words that were hushed by the volume of the encouraging posters that crowded the room, we silenced ourselves to find her words

“What do you want to be when you grow up”

The concept played with my thoughts,

It shuffled in and out my mind but never really quite stuck

My mind wandered until it found you

Effortlessly, I thought of you

I thought of how from the moment I learned to walk and talk,

I studied the way you gracefully swept across a room,

The way your words echoed from your lips,

how those words healed those around you,

I sat there in awe hoping to mimic your heart and soul

I remembered the way you were so infatuated by how ice drizzled from the clouds,

The day you taught me to catch the frozen patterns onto the tip of my tongue where they melted peacefully,

How you promised to watch sunset with me each night,

how you never broke your promises,

I thought of this and the million other ways you told me you loved me without really saying the words at all

I felt cuddled by the idea of how lucky I was that you shared your favorite things with me

I thought of you,

And how I wanted to share your kindness, compassion, and heart

Even when I won’t be forced to eat my vegetables

Or my only responsibility will no longer be to take care of my dolls

So when I came home that day and you asked me what we talked about, a smile carved ear to ear,

I softly mumbled the fragments of sentences hoping the words would echo off my lips the same way yours do

I told you not much and that I love you, mom

because as an 8 year old, that was all I really knew

I told you about how the kids who surrounded me spoke confident promises of what their futures held,

And while many aspired to become doctors, actresses, or journalists

I thought of you