Skip to main content

Means to Me

I wrote this at work and I had to just end it because it kept making me want to cry. I don't know where it came from, but it just came out. I was thinking about how much I love my son and how much I feel like I'm some terrible sort of father and don't get to spend enough time with him and I turned that minor depression into absolute grief and this came out.

I lost my son today.

I lost him to recklessness and stupidity and no amount of tears and grief will bring him back.

No amount of revenge will make me feel better.

All I can do is remember what made him special. All I can do is remember how much I loved him and how much we tried to brighten each others days.

He was five years old and I never spent enough time with him. Do you ever think you spend enough time with your children? I don’t know. I never felt like I did. I’ve been working full time since he was born, so I’ve naturally spent more time at work than with him since he’s been born. Quantifying that idea in my head makes me want to cry.

Did he feel loved enough? I don’t know. I don’t know if a child can ever feel or be loved enough. I think of the smile on his face and want to hug him, bring him close to me, cheek to cheek. I yearn to feel the softness of his embrace one more time. I want to give him a kiss and tell him I love him.

I could never imagine how bad this would hurt. How could I? No one anticipates to feel the loss of one so young. No one can predict a tragedy so horrible, and that’s why I wish that I would have taken more time to be with him. To fill his days with as much love and attention as I should have.

God.

He had an amazing sense of humor for a child. When he was two and half or so... The mid-point in his life... Jesus... When he was two and a half and potty training there was a Saturday morning I remember. I had slept in. When I got up, I went to the bathroom, like most people do, to find the toilet full. There was no toilet paper to be seen either, so he hadn’t wiped himself. I flushed the toilet and went to the other room where I told my wife, “Guess who didn’t wipe himself or flush the toilet?”

Before she could reply, my son popped up from behind the couch and shrugged, saying as adorably as possible, “I didn’t wash my hands either!”

I miss him.

I’ll always miss him. How could I not? He spent five years changing and shaping my life. I tried my hardest to shape his, but I’ll never know what kind of a man he’d grow up to be. It makes me want to cry thinking of all the things he’ll miss out on. A first kiss, driving a car, having kids as adorable as he was.

As hard as it is on me, it’s even harder on his little sister.

She’s four and spent more time with him than anyone and she keeps asking where her brother is.

I don’t know how to tell her.

When he started pre-school and she was still too young to go, she would cry and cry and cry when they were separated. And afterwards, he would always ask why she couldn’t come with him.

When he would come home, she would run to him and hug him, shouting his name.

She’s only four, but I wonder if she’ll ever be completely whole again.

There’s so much more I want to say, but I can’t. I want him back and I can’t have him.

The hurt is too much.

I just wish I could tell him I love him one last time and explain to him how much he means to me... Meant to me...

Comments

Jack Tripper said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Popular posts from this blog

Salt Lake Comic Con 2017 Schedule

It's time for another year of Salt Lake Comic Con and another hectic schedule for me. But! that doesn't mean it's not a helluva lot of fun. I hope you're able to join me at any of these panels. Especially if you like Star Wars. And please, please, please come to my signing and visit. Get some books signed. I'd love that enormously. Here is my Thursday schedule: Everything here is a highlight. That first panel about behind the scenes of the prequels is with Pablo Hidalgo and I'll be asking him questions about what it was like to be there on set for most of the prequels. Then I'll be asking questions of Michael Biehn, who I've been a fan of since I was a little kid. Aliens and Terminator were favorites. If you want to ask him a question, please hit me up on Twitter with it. I will ask it at the panel. And you don't want to miss Fauxthentic History's Infinity Gauntlet live episode. It's going to be soooo good. Here is Friday:

The Missed Opportunities of Days Gone By

“Hello?” I said into the phone, accepting the call from a number I didn’t recognize. “Hey,” the feminine voice on the other replied, as though I should know the sound of her voice. At a loss, I said, “Can I help you?” “It’s Brooke.” Her name stopped me. It couldn’t possibly be her. We hadn’t spoken in years, a decade perhaps. “Brooke?” “Yeah, Brooke Baker. This is Mark, right?” Jesus Christ. It was her. “Yeah, it is Mark. Brooke. Wow. How are you? It’s been a long time since… well… since anything.” “I know.” “So, how are you doing?” “Okay, I suppose…” Her voice belied her words, though. Something was up. “I… It’s just been so long and I guess I wanted to hear your voice.” “I don’t think I had a number for you. Ever. I offered a couple of times, but…” “I was a brat back then.” And that’s how a random phone call turned into a two-and-a-half hour catch-up session. We spoke of everything under the sun: people we still knew, how different we were, h

The End of an Era and a New Beginning

It's been a long time coming, but I think an upgrade to my web presence was long overdue. I began this blog in 2005 and it's served me well over the last 13 years. My goal in those early days was to write a short story every month. Back then, that was the only writing I was doing. This website, then called "Bryan's Short Story Corner," got me into a regular writing habit. One that I still maintain today. I hoped it would help me get eyeballs on my words and, looking back at some of those early short stories, I shouldn't have wanted any of those eyeballs looking. Today, my Patreon fills that void. There is a dedicated group of supporters there that help subsidize my ability to write short stories on the regular. After I started publishing books, this blog morphed into a place to talk about my projects and writing and it worked well enough for that for a long time. But now I have Twitter and Medium for those functions and they have much cleaner and easi