“It’s gone”
One sentence, delivered without preamble, but accompanied by a single photo. It was a wall showing a mural of the surface of the moon. The wall lives at the science museum near us, and Joey had gone there today with his friends. This museum was a place I used to bring the kids to often when they were young, and I was pleasantly surprised that my young adult son still eagerly wanted to visit, and bring friends along.
The photo showed the backdrop of a feature they had years ago called The Moonwalk, which used a harness and hydraulics to simulate the lack of gravity on the moon. The last time we were there Joey had already gotten too heavy for this, but he had enjoyed it many times previously. Until that single text, I didn’t grasp just how much.
I had long ago stopped bringing the kids here, assuming they had aged out of it. We had been so many times and collected so many good memories there that I never thought much about the fact that those days were ending. I didn’t know that some of the ordinary moments we barely notice become landmarks in our children’s memories.
The Moonwalk was always their favorite exhibit. What child wouldn’t love being strapped into a harness to simulate weightlessness? Every time we went, they would run there as soon as we entered, eager to be first. I can still hear their laughter, playing on loop in my head and heart.
I can still see his face: the harness was almost too big for him, and it seemed to swallow him entirely. His hands clutched onto each side with an eagerness only matched by the delight in his eyes. His little legs – wearing intentionally mismatched red and blue Crocs – kicking with pure joy as he was raised into the air. His laughter … Oh his laughter. It was like bottling glee and then opening it for everyone to experience.
When I saw Joey’s text my heart sank. I went to the internet to find out what had happened. Where had it gone? The answer was as ordinary and bland as adulthood often is when contrasted with the colors of childhood: the exhibit could no longer be repaired at an affordable cost, so they had removed it and replaced it with a digital simulator.
I asked Joey if he had tried the simulator. He fixed me with his expressive eyes, derision brimming in them:
“Digital? I don’t think so. That’s not the same.”
He still had a wonderful time. He shared his love of this place with his friends, and they enjoyed themselves quite a bit. But I also watched him close the chapter on a piece of his childhood for the first time, and sit with it.
Me? I’ll be over here, watching my videos of a tiny redhead boy, kicking his legs in the air as he rides up in a harness “to the moon.”
