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To my Precious Ayden
I miss you so much. I
hope that every time you smell a pine comb you think of your Papa. You wanted Papa to be your best friend so
much, that you chided Papa one time for saying when he said in your presence
that he and Molly were best friends (remember Molly, Papa’s dog that he saved
from death?). “But, what about me,
Papa? I want to be your best
friend.”
You were looking for pine combs
in the forest at that point, and Papa was pretending that pine combs were so
special that he had to hide them in his coat from others by zipping his coat to
his neck. It was a fantasy created by
Papa to make it so much more fun for you; and you bought into that childhood
fantasy by making sure that his coat was zipped up whenever anyone crossed your
paths on the way home. Papa still
remembers the number of times you said, “Zip it, Papa! Zip it!”
I hope you know that we are no longer in your life by our
choice. We struggled so hard to keep you
as our grandson … and against others who worked so hard to take you away and to
make our times together, you and me and Papa and Molly, a fiction. It finally got to a point where we realized
that to try and hold on to you was to make you a victim to those who were
pulling the other end of the tightrope. We let
you go because we worried about the damage that it was creating to your life,
by the hands and scheming of others.
Your psychological safety was more important to us than trying to hang
on to what we wanted and needed and longed for. One day, I hope you understand.
Our house is filled with pictures of you, frozen in
time. Sometimes I think I should put
them away. Immediately, I think that
would not be right. It was our time and
it should be remembered. But, every time
I look at the pictures, the scars open up, and my heart bleeds for what could
have been. This weekend I will take off
the bandages and pick at the scars. It’s
worth the present pain revisiting the past memories. The scars won't ever heal, though.
If life were as it should be, you’d be coming over this
weekend and searching for Easter eggs.
As you did for the short years we were your grandparents. You’d be sharing them with Papa. We’d be
cautioning you not to give them to Molly, cause you wanted to share but didn’t
know chocolate was fatal to dogs. You
just always wanted to share with Papa and Molly.
And, just maybe, although this moment is flash frozen, you’d
be saying to Papa “can we take my bike and look for pine combs with Molly? But we need to “zip it, Papa. zip it”.
Instead, I will die a little bit inside when someone talks about their grandchild and how much fun it was. I am missing you.
I will see you again.
Love, grandma
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