Every morning, he wakes me up with verbal dissertations on watches: where they’re made, whether they’re digital or analog, how expensive they are. He speaks as though he’s addressing a lecture hall, bursting with knowledge he can’t wait to share. I sleepily nod and mumble “Mmmhmm” at this wonder of a boy, this one I prayed and planned for who upended every one of those prayers and plans.

He and his brother are not what we imagined. They are more.

And this is the way it goes with grace: the expectation supplanted by something different that feels at first like subtraction; then there is not an exclusion that isn’t replaced by a better inclusion, something taken away that isn’t replaced by something infinitely better, either via the promise of One Day or the gift of Right Now.

There is a lot of Right Now right now.

At the beginning of this, the third of four terms in a school year that is flying by, The Kid brought home his News packet: a bundle of pages designating the weekly topic for speaking in front of his class. I flipped through it and saw, at the end, that they’d each be picking someone in their grade to identify via clues. I sighed. Who would he pick? More importantly, to my bleeding maternal heart, would anyone pick him? Included or excluded? Remembered or forgotten?

Last week, a dad approached me for a playdate. His daughter was insistent: James must come over. Maybe even spend the night? We decided to start with the two-hours-in-the-afternoon version of events, and that day I had a cup of tea with her parents then left as the kids went to to the park with the dad. As I was leaving, the mom told me: “She’s picked him for her News this week.” The next morning, at school, the girl asked me to lean in and she whispered, “I picked James for news.” They lined up moments later with their class, she behind him with her arms wrapped around him, he holding them in place. His therapist and I shared the kind of look that only those who have been through battle can share: tearful, exuberant grins.

This is the math of grace: always more.

And on Saturday night, I sat at a tall table of women, in between two of my closest, and listened to those two talk about what he’d taught them, how much he means to them, this boy of mine, and I feel the math take shape into something more than numbers, into a gratitude that is begotten of answered prayers and kept promises and all the light I couldn’t see before: my fears, once again, allayed, over wine and love.

At birthday parties, he charms the guests with his questions about their watches, inspiring outheld wrists and patient listening, and then he grabs Little Brother and they tear around with the rest of the kids as if they’ve always been here. I drink a glass of champagne to celebrate. We move about, this family of ours, among people who understand and know us, who make space for us.

Facebook lets me know, through its Memories feature, that I used to post WAY too many pictures, used to overshare on the reg (who, me?!). It lets me know that LB was the one who taught me to use a Q-tip as a laxative (#blessed). And that TK gave the following lessons: “peepee comes out of a penis and poopoo comes out of a butt,” and “if you pour Baby Magic on your house then the rain will wash it clean.” I recognise in the moments of being taught, in the way the math works out, what self-protective BS my planned method of parenting would have been, how I was headed toward a path of agonised addition and subtraction, molehill-enlarging.

During TK’s playdate, I walked down to the reserve and sat on a bench in front of the water. It changed constantly, reflecting sun then clouds, staying calm then moving, placid then rippled. These changes making it what it is. We’re planning LB’s birthday party and so TK, naturally, is talking about his. “Who do you want to invite?” I ask him, numbers and logistics running through my brain until he answers, “Everyone. I want everyone.” And I look down at him while also somehow, always, looking up to him, this boy of a set of two who never stop teaching me.