Letter to my Son

It’s a year now since you walked out of that door; a year, in which I listened for your steps on the stairs every day. Sometimes I think I hear them. Sometimes I think I hear you laugh.

They say that grief will go away with time. They are wrong. It mellows. It loses its sharp edges that make you gasp and leave you standing catching your breath as if drowning. But it doesn’t go away; it’s always there just beneath the surface giving joy a bitter, spicy twang, and laughter a melancholy twist.

At first, it was easier, you know? The shock I got when they called me to tell me you had died in hospital was numbing me for days. It helped getting all the paperwork done. I cried, though, on the phone when people asked about you. I tried not to. But after the shock had gone away, the days started to get longer, with you not coming home.

You were so happy when you left. You told me you were the happiest person on earth. And you said I was the best dad any boy could have. I will always remember that now. And the way your eyes were all alight with love and laughter as you said it.

When I listen to people, I sometimes think you were an unnatural son. I remember coming home time and again; you would be working on something or other. You would look up and see me, and then smile as if I had brought you a present. You gave so much love; I sometimes felt I couldn’t return so much to you.

You gave so much love to everybody, you know? It sometimes was really hard when people on the street would stop me to ask where you were because they hadn’t seen you around. Sometimes I couldn’t answer, because my tears were choking me.

I looked forward to our holidays. Do you know that all my friends’ children complain that they must go on holidays with their parents? And you always wanted to go just with me, complaining I never had enough time for you. But then, you always wanted all my time for you and at all times.

I remember the way you talked when I got home from work; how you would start a story that had excited you and how your words would start to crumble and your speech stumble in the rush of getting it all out so fast. I would calm you down and make you tell me all in quiet and orderly fashion all over again; and you would afterwards complain that it was no fun that way.

I still love you, you know?

The way you looked at me, making your eyes even larger in your intensity to get me to agree to something you really wanted to do or to have. It twisted my heart at times when I had to say no.

I miss you. I miss your laugh, your smile. I miss the way you would suddenly start an argument over nothing, and the next minute just laugh it away. I even miss your huffs, when you had to get up really early and you sulked for hours, until suddenly something struck you as funny, and you would laugh and the sunshine would be back in your eyes.

We had a happy home. It still is a happy home. I miss you, though. Sometimes something happens to make me laugh, I look around to share the joke with you. Then I hear you laughing.