Love You Forever

The classic children’s book "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch starts off with a kid who is a force of destruction. He flushes his mom’s watch down the toilet and makes a huge mess. This kid knew how to push his mom's buttons. The recurring motif of this book is the song she sings to him that goes, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always..."

When I was a kid, I walked everywhere. I walked to and from my elementary school. Leaving the house to walk around on my own was fine as long as my parents new where I was. I'd walk to the comic book store or to a candy shop. Growing so comfortable with being outside and on my own as a child, I didn't always make the smartest decisions.

Once, when I was maybe seven years old, I told my mom I'd go to the park and I left the apartment. But I didn't stop at the park across the street. I walked up the hill to another park about a quarter-mile up the road. I knew my friend Derrick lived up there somewhere, so I thought I'd explore that neighborhood to see if I could find his house. Then I just explored some more as my mind wandered.

I don't know how long I was gone. Eventually, I headed home. I took my time getting there, oblivious of the trouble I was in. While I was still twenty paces away from the green door of our apartment, it swung violently open.

"Get in here RIGHT NOW!" my mom shouted.

I have to admit, my seven-year-old self was confused, and not just because of the tone of my mom's voice. I was confused because going inside the apartment was obviously the direction I was currently walking. If she would just wait a minute, I'd be inside. What's the big deal?

Little did I know, it was a big deal. A VERY big deal. I walked inside.

"Go to your room!" she said.

Still slightly confused as to what had gotten my mom so riled up, I went to my room.

Upon my arrival in my room I was victim to the loudest and angriest beratement of my short life. She'd shouted at me and my siblings plenty of times, but this was different. This was rage. Pure, unfiltered, and unrestrained rage.

My older siblings were so afraid for me, they called my dad at work and told him to get home before she murdered me.

But as my mom screamed, my good sense and insight that were so absent upon entering the apartment finally caught up with the moment. As scared as I was at what my mother might do in her fury, I saw the signs of tears and the redness of her eyes. I heard the shaking in her voice. My mother wasn't just angry. She was terrified.

I remember sitting on the ground, knees pulled in to my chest, shoulders pulled up to my ears, hair standing on end as she screamed and screamed.

Apparently, I'd been absent from the house for quite a long time. She'd searched the entire park, calling my name. She'd called my friends' parents. She'd called all our acquaintances. When I'd arrived home, she was just about to call the police.

And then it was over. She stopped screaming. My dad got home. And she just cried.

"...As long as I'm living, my Mommy you'll be."

The children's book "Love You Forever" ends with the son who's grown up to be an adult and is taking care of his old mother who is sick. This time he sings the song back to her. But he changes the last line: "as long as I'm living, my mommy you'll be."

I sit next to my mom in the chemotherapy treatment center. We talk about everything as though as though her stage-three cancer diagnosis hasn't changed anything. But seeing her bald and connected to machines. Hearing the beeping, feeling the unsteadiness as she walks. The swelling in her leg, her pain. It breaks my heart.

I tell her about the benefits at my new job. I show her pictures of the engagement ring I'm planning to buy for my girlfriend. All good news and optimism, but deep down I'm terrified.

"When you were a baby," she says, "and I was depressed or stressed out, your dad would say, 'go pick up Tyler and hold him for a while. You'll feel better.' And it always did. You've always had that effect on people."

"Not always," I tell her.

"Okay, not always," she laughs.