Over the years, season after season, amid the frantic pace of pants that were too short and shoes that had become too tight, I’ve felt this nostalgia growing within me. Nostalgia for our Sunday mornings spent snuggled up together, for the mashed potatoes, for your sticky fingers, for those childish drawings—not particularly beautiful, but ones I loved so much to receive. Nostalgia for the time when I didn’t have to share you with friends, nostalgia for that bygone era when a simple trip to the park filled you with such innocent and deeply moving joy.
Summer—without a routine, without a schedule, and with time just for us—makes me feel like I’m reliving those moments from before… Then September approaches, school starts again, and that nostalgia returns. It overwhelms me, hits me full force, and makes me dread the next time I’ll have to change your pants that are too short, your shoes that are too tight.
Each of our wonderful summers brings me closer and closer to my fear of no longer having you by my side, that this chapter of my life will come to an end. A chapter that smells of sunscreen and tastes of sugar, buried under a stack of Canada notebooks and freshly picked apples…
The countdown to back-to-school season unfolds as inevitably as the flow of an invisible hourglass, and my mother’s heart knows how lucky I am to have you close by, yet realizes that nothing lasts forever and that summer’s green leaves always end up turning red and falling…
I’m so far removed from mashed potatoes and sticky fingers; I’ve changed your shoes so often that now they’re bigger than mine and bear witness to the passing of time… Here I am, feeling nostalgic and emotional just from catching the scent of warm apple pies—an olfactory memory that brings to mind your little cold noses in the fall during your early childhood. As the years go by, this nostalgia takes hold of me more and more, because among all the seasons that come and go, my most beautiful season is you… You are the most beautiful season of my life!