I Miss you

Every day.

My boy, you are far away from me.

I don’t hear the pitter patter of your tiny feet, the sound of your coo’s and caa’s. The way you are working the world out, I am missing that. I am missing you. The way you are being raised by the world, and by your community.

My heart feels you, but I don’t see you. I haven’t seen you my son.

The reasons why are different from the lived experience.
How long is long enough my boy?

I miss your day to day, the special circumstances that make a life. I am missing the first time you made a pancake, or your excitement for finding an easter egg in an hunt around the garden. I miss the way we used to garden together, and the way we used to discover the worms and snails in the soil. The digging we did, planting roses in the garden.

I miss your smile, your laugh, and the way you used to bounce on your feet when you were frustrated. Do you still do that my love? Or have you learned to suppress that in you yet?

I hope you never learn to suppress yourself like I did, like we all do.

I hope you’re still climbing things, one of the most special times in my life, was being with you when you learned to climb the stairs.

climbing things like I did, always looking to get to the top of things, to look over a landscape. You are like me in that way. Even though I felt scared when you’d then take the first opportunity to jump off those things! I remember one of the first times I put you in the swing, half way down you decided to stand up and jump off. I caught you my love but it caught me by surprise, because that’s an aspect I don’t have, I love that we’re different in that way, you always take the first opportunity to do the thing.

You wanted to cut tomatoes with a pallet knife, at so young. You wanted to stir the scrambled eggs and get involved.

I want to be involved with you my dear son, to see all those ways you are achieving and taking action. To do it alongside you, to do it with you, to help you shape who you are by being with you when you’re figuring that stuff out.

I cherish the times we spent together, the way you made a blowing out noise when you wanted to light a candle, the weight of you in my arms when I lit that candle for you, and the way we both shared that awe of watching the flame flicker.

I wonder if you remember those times, do you remember me?
You were so young, maybe you don’t.
I like to think there’s a feeling in you that you recognise, a “I’m connected to dada” feeling.

The first time you saw a fire in the log burner. The balance point between your apprehension, awe, and excitement at the force of the flames. The newness of the big warmth. Being with you to hold you in that experience.

The laughter and squeals the first time we took a swim in the sea together.

When you were in your mummy’s tummy, we went to Cornwall together. I saw a daddy with his young child, the child was clasped to his chest in a holder, and they were faced towards the sea, open armed and totally in feeling. I yearned for that experience with you. To experience the connecting feeling, together, feeling nature, feeling the power of those forces.

There is a hole inside me my love. My heart has love for you, that has nowhere to go. So i’ll put it out to the sun and stars, and hope they give it back to you.

My heart yearns for you.
I am distressed without you, a little bit every day.

I can’t find a route back to you yet, and that is due to my fear, which I feel ashamed about. I wish I was better, more courageous, more successful. I wish I had the resource to get you back in my life. I’m sorry my love, for my fallibility. For my humanness, I am your dada, but I have failings.

The anguish I have felt being away from you for two and a half years, it has been a great, great, amount of anguish.

Not knowing where you live, it has been so crushing. Not being able to find support to take steps forward.

I promise you I work every day to be better for you. To be better for me, for the people I love. I hope to introduce you to them. They love you too. I talk about you often. They wish to be near you too. To have experiences with you, to show you life through their eyes.

My partner and I, we talk about you. We pray for you. We bring you into our home in our thoughts and actions.

I miss you, every day.