Today is your 9th birthday, Little Man. I am so sorry that I am not there to celebrate it with you.
In the blog posting Hello Little Man, I wrote some advice for you.
I also mentioned that the last time I saw you was at a celebration for your sister’s 9th birthday, now 54 months ago.
Ok, that’s not true. That’s the last time we spoke.
I’ve seen pictures of you!!
Also, we passed each other on 91st Street once. You and your sister were riding in the back seat of your mother’s car. None of you saw me.
You were so little when we were together, I doubt you remember much about me.
I pray your sister tells you about me.
There are some around you who never understood me and in an attempt to exercise my self-hatred, I fanned their flames and made things worse on purpose.
You have every right to be angry at or disappointed with me.
I loved spending time with you and your sister, but I was so terribly unhappy inside with myself that my unhappiness was leaking into everything. This was affecting your mother’s happiness and it would have eventually affected you.
These things have a way of running from parents to children. It cannot be completely stopped unless what has happened happens.
While I always treated you and your sister quite well, you witnessed me yelling at your mother.
You don’t remember, but once I put my fist through a wall right over your head. You weren’t even a year old. I wasn’t mad at you at all. I wasn’t even talking to you. I was just unhappy with myself and frustrated and stressed, and yelling at myself. The choice of when to let that go was a bad one. The whole image of it still makes me very, very sad.
I gave your mother a way to keep me out of your lives and now you’ve had the pleasure of growing up without my influence.
This time away has given me a chance to completely break myself down and remake myself into someone I would want you to know.
And we will know each other one day, Little Man.
You and your sister are invited to my house in Maui anytime you like. Stay as long as you want. Bring your kids.
Oh, I don’t have that house yet, but I’m sure I will by the time you read this!!
Happy Birthday, son, offspring of Joe, the spawn, aLittleHairySpider.
I love you.
One thing you should know is that I have gotten everything I prayed for since 2004. You may think this time apart was a high price to pay, but eternity is a long time and a few years apart does not ruin our relationship. I’m sure we’ll have better times together as we are now then as we would have become had this transformation not been.
You have been safe thanks to your mother and your new father. I thank God for them and for you and your sister.
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