I Miss Him

I miss my boy. Not just his little-guy self that I was talking about here yesterday;  ever since he went off to New York to live, I miss him at every age. He was just home for the weekend and maybe that’s why I’m feeling it all again.He was always such fun to live with. I remember a morning in Fourth Grade when he was getting ready for school and suddenly there was this gigantic crash in the bathroom and when he came out he had a big smile on his face and a long beard of minty foam all down his front. “There was a small explosion in the tooth-brushing area,” was all he said.I could never get mad at him, even when he procrastinated on those high school term papers. They were always perfect by the time he handed them in even if it did mean he and his dad were rocketing down streets  and around corners to get him to school with them.He has that quality: the perfectionism I mean. He sits in front of sports when folding his laundry. It  takes him a good 40 minutes to get through the whole basket but by the time he’s done each T-shirt has been smoothed  with such precision you’d think it was a flag folded by a couple of West Pointers at  a state funeral. He shoveled our stone steps after Friday's storm and it looks like someone used actual tools to remove the snow in exact rectangular blocks such as you'd see in an igloo.~ Sigh ~His big sisters miss him too and his dad but what are you gonna do? All his college pals moved straight to Brooklyn once they graduated and there they remain, for now anyway.Although.... as we sat in front of the fire last night eating a last meal before he made the five-hour journey back  he did happen to say that the snow piles and uncollected garbage in Brooklyn  after that big December 26th storm were disgusting.  "Just the sight of them day after day!" he said, as he stood up to bring his empty plate to the kitchen. "It was horrible . Almost Post-Apocalyptic!”His sister Annie and I exchanged a look and when he left the room I whispered , "Did you hear that? This is good for us!"  “For real!” she whispered back.We just miss him with s expressive ways, especially in football season because there’s never been a bigger Pats  fan. This  below is our living room, Superbowl XLII,  when the Pats went down in flames. I bet you can guess which one he is.