I am a Hat

I am a hat.

I sit on his head.

My tails dangle next to his soft cheeks.

My soft, white poofs, hug the sides of his chin.

Through my beaded eyes, I can see the world.

His world.

Our world.

Every morning, he puts me on.

We walk the three blocks to his school.

Him, his mother, and me.

His hand in his mother’s.

I look up at her.

I like the way she looks at him.

With a smile.

With so much love.

Sometimes he notices.

Sometimes he doesn’t.

Children are like that sometimes.

They don’t see how much the people around them love them.

But they can also tell when someone doesn’t like them.

Children are strange.

And beautiful.

Every morning, when we get to school, he kisses his mother goodbye.

I can see the way she looks at him.

With worry.

With hope.

We walk into the school and down the hall to his classroom.

He takes off his Spiderman backpack.

Spiderman and I wink at each other- we have been friends for a long time now.

He then takes off his coat and lastly, he takes me off.

His little fingers press gently against my sides,

And I float in the air as he places me on the coat hanger where he has placed his jacket.

And this,

This,

Is my favorite moment.

This is the highlight of every of one of my days.

Because this is the moment when I get to see his full face.

His big, brown eyes and his soft brown hair, a little messy from taking me off.

I stare at him and smile, and I wonder if he can see it.

Sometimes I think so, because sometimes, he smiles back.

I watch him as he sits on the rug and stares at his teacher, Ms. Perez.

Ms. Perez is really good.

She teaches the children their colors and their letters.

She teaches them how to cross their t’s and dot their i’s.

I watch him watch her.

His little fist placed under his chin.

He is such a good listener.

I watch the way he bites his lip in concentration as he draws the letter L.

The first letter of his name.

At recess, I watch through the windows as he runs with his friend Brian.

As they play in the sand box.

As they climb the monkey bars.

I can hear their laughter from inside the classroom.

All of the children’s laughter.

It’s such an amazing sound.

I don’t remember a time before belonging to him.

I know I was made.

Knitted by someone else.

I know I probably hung in a store for a certain amount of time before being bought.

I know all this.

But I don’t remember any of it.

I just remember waking up one day and being on his head.

His sweet, soft head.

I remember hugging his temples, making sure he was warm enough.

I remember smelling his apple scented shampoo and I remember thinking,

This is the only scent I want to smell for the rest of my life.

After school his father is waiting for us outside.

He always runs up to his father, legs almost too fast for his little body.

His father scoops him up and for a moment I am flying through the air, able to see the sky and the tops of the trees, and the other children greeting their mothers and fathers, and even though I know that I’m not fully alive, for a moment it feels like it.

His father takes his hand and together they walk home.

His father gives him the same smile and the same look as his mother.

Love.

So, much love.

They talk about their days, and he tells his father about everything he learned.

How he learned how to draw the letter L.

The first letter of his name.

He tells his father about playing in the sandbox and going on the monkey bars,

And even though his stories are almost the same as the day before, and the day before that,

His father listens with rapt attention, asking him questions and laughing at his jokes,

As if what his father is hearing is the most interesting and marvelous thing in the world.

When we get home, he runs to his room.

Superhero posters cover the walls.

Mostly Spiderman.

All the Spidermans wink at me and I wink back- we are friends. All of us, for a long time.

He takes off his shoes and his coat, and his Spiderman backpack, and then he takes me off.

His little fingers pressing against my sides again, lifting me into the air and gently placing me on the little desk by his bed.

I watch as he takes out his homework and gets comfy on his bed while he does his work.

After a while, his mother calls him for dinner, and he leaps off the bed.

I can smell the food she has cooked, and I know that if I had a mouth, it would be watering.

From my spot on the desk, I can see them eating dinner.

The mother.

The father.

The boy.

I can see the way they look at each other.

The way, that even when there’s anger or sadness or annoyance,

That even when things aren’t perfect,

There is still love.

I can see it.

It’s always there.

This is our routine.

He and I.

This is our life.

I am his.

I am only his.

We are walking home from school.

Him, his father, and me.

He is telling his father about his day.

And then, his father stops.

He stares.

The boy stares.

I stare.

I see a van.

A big van.

There are men in uniforms outside of this van.

They wear masks.

They carry guns.

One of them grabs his father.

Another grabs him.

His father tries to hold onto his hand, but the men rip them apart.

A man holds him by his Spiderman backpack.

I watch the terror in his father’s eyes,

The way his father’s eyes are open so wide.

The man takes him, my little boy, to his front door.

I watch as the world seems to move in slow motion.

I watch his mother watching from the window, her hand over her mouth, her eyes also open wide

So, wide.

I watch his little hands shake in front of him.

These men don't like him.

He can feel it.

I can feel it.

I can feel him wondering why.

Why these men don’t like him.

How could they not like him when they don’t know him.

When he is just a little boy.

I wish my tails were longer so that I could hold those hands.

We are in front of the door.

The man tells him to ask his mother to open it.

His father screams to not open the door.

His mother is pregnant.

It is too scary for her to open the door.

But he doesn’t know that.

He just wants to go inside.

He is shaking.

He is shaking so bad.

The man takes him back to the van.

There are lots of people around now.

They are screaming at the men.

They are telling the men to let him go.

To let his father go.

There are people taking pictures.

There is so much happening all at once, and much too fast.

He doesn’t know where to go, where to look.

I gently squeeze his head.

I want him to know that I am here.

That I will keep him warm.

As they put him in the van, a piece of paper falls out of his Spiderman backpack.

As it floats to the ground, I see that it is his worksheet.

His worksheet for tracing letters,

And there in the middle of the paper, in his large not-quite-straight writing, is the letter L.

The first letter of his name.