I’ll always remember the sound of my son’s voice

I’ve always loved the sound of my son’s voice. As soon as he started babbling as newborn, I’d talk to him endlessly. I’d hover over him as he lay on his back and he would communicate his love to me. “Tell me more,” I’d say. He’d smile and his “da da das” would wash over me like a cool mist. I couldn’t get enough.

When he was a baby and finally sleeping through the night, he’d serve as my alarm clock. Through the monitor, I’d hear his coos. Those morning coos sounded like the lyrics to my favorite song—only sweeter. I looked forward to waking up in the morning because I knew I’d get to hear his voice. I’d lie awake and listen to my son’s coos for a couple of minutes—giving him time to wake up. But when I couldn’t take it anymore, I’d waltz to his room, peer over his crib, and our dark eyes would adhere together. Electricity made the ends of our lips shoot upward, and our day would begin.

When he was two years old and learning to talk, I’d still wait for him to wake me in the morning. But his coos were replaced with the singing of, “Mamamia, Mamamia,” being sung over and over again. His love for his mother still pierced through that monitor, and every morning it would feel like the first time I had heard that love story.

The older he got, I’d read to him and his little voice would interrupt me, “I wonder what’s going to happen next, Mommy.” The gears in his inquisitive mind were always working. I always cherished our time together nuzzled in a book.

But today, my son is almost six years old. His voice doesn’t wake me in the morning anymore. He gets out of bed by himself. Actually, he does a lot of things by himself now. And although watching him grow up aches at times, I still get to listen to his voice -- only, now, he’s reading books to me. He flubs through words but always keeps trying.

In less than a decade, my son’s voice will start to change. It will turn deep and quake at times. The memories of what he sounded like from that monitor will fade, and he will look more like a man than a boy. His eyes will no longer gaze at me but at young women, instead. And I will only serve as his pesky shadow. Yes, my son will have moments when his voice throws sarcasm at his mother. He will raise that voice of his and he will want to dismiss me.

So, for now, I’ll keep taking videos of my son talking, reading, and singing. I’ll go through the old videos I have saved and choke up every time I view them. I will try to sear his voice into my brain so that the memory of his voice will never fully escape me. Yes, one day he will float his voice towards another woman he loves. He will no longer belong to me only. But I will always know that his first true love belonged to me, his mother -- a mother who will always be grateful for the love in his voice and that he directed that love to me.

Angela Anagnost-Repke is a flawed mother who turns to writing to help in both her daily blunders and rediscovering herself outside of motherhood. She is passionate about the comradery of motherhood and is an advocate of a moms’ night out that involves too many cocktails. Angela is at work on a cross-generational memoir, "Mothers Lie."