If I were smaller I would ...

I have the occasion to drop off my children at their schools from time to time. When I look around at the multitudes of little humanoids, I think, “How in the world can someone that is less than three feet tall be so complete?”

As I write this, my youngest (and smallest) daughter who is just over two now, just finished telling me that she is a big girl. She turned the water off all by herself. Can you imagine looking up to my six feet plus frame and telling me that you are big? I guess it depends on from whose eyes the observation is made.

I remember visiting relatives when I was smaller. Smaller… younger… much smaller. They would always tell me that I had grown a foot! I felt big even when I was actually small. Everything looked huge. We would go on vacation and the cars were huge and the campsites were huge. My parents were huge and well, they were old too, but I came to understand that one day I would be big too and I couldn’t wait to be old. Smallness was for babies.

I can remember being small enough to sit in my Grandmother’s lap. She would pat my leg and tell me that when I was very small she would sleep with me in the bed at night and hold my feet until I would go to sleep.

My first small memory was in my great-grandmother’s farmhouse in Arizona. I remember Grandma Baker telling Rantz and I that it was time for a nap. I recall running across the house to the big bed. It was a race with my brother that went on forever. We had to climb into that big bed and struggle onto the mattress.

It was twenty something years later when I was able to go back into that farmhouse where they used to live. It was a small block building with one small bedroom and one small bathroom. All of it was small. I wanted to be small at that moment. I wanted to be able to run across that old cool floor and chase back my memories.

I took the time to photograph the hands of all of my children some time ago. I placed their hand within mine and took a quiet shot of a slice of time. Natalie’s hand was the largest and she held my hand as much as I held hers. Shannon’s hand was slender and thin, much like her mother’s. Cody didn’t want me to show the bruise on his thumb, so we worked out the perfect position. Katelin was in for the game and wanted to get both hands in the shot. Jackson was willing to curl his little hand into mine because the other children had been waiting in turn. Finally I was able to unclench the infant hand of Darby to make the experience complete.

I love to look at those little pictures. I’m not sure how to describe the feeling that it gives me, but it makes the world a little quieter… and softer... and smaller.

Right now, if I could, I would close my eyes and be back there in the coolness of my grandmothers Margie’s summer sheets. I would be lulled to sleep by the sweetness of her hands cupping my little feet… much like I do and have done to each and every one of my own little children. That is the small that I want to be. That is the small I want to remember…


Shannon R Killman