Those Fatherly Times
I just recently came across this old photo, taken 5 years ago, and I don't what it was exactly, but it overwhelmed me with so much sadness.
I mean, it's not that I don't know, because it wasn't one thing but many things.
It's no mystery that I miss my children. We spent this past weekend (July 2-July 5th) together. We had so much fun together and the moment that stood out to me the most was our moments of play.
It was my son's 14th birthday (July 3rd). We went big for his birthday. He hadn't been to Kanki (a popular Japanese Steakhouse in town), so we went to Kanki for lunch, then I took him to get his haircut at his favorite barbershop in downtown Durham, then I rented us a hotel room for the night at one of our favorite spots to be together (mainly because it has the rooftop pool). Sophie, my daughter loves being in the water. That's not the main reason, but we all like it for several reasons. 24 hour "Stay n' Plays" are something that I've been doing with them for years. We've done our "stay n' plays" in Chicago, D.C, Durham (twice) and Raleigh (twice).
Let me take a moment here to pause. My son is now 14 and he's an inch (one freaking inch) shorter than me. That kid blossomed all of a sudden. My little boy, not so little anymore.
I don't remember that last time I had time done that. It was something that we used to do all the time, wrestle each other and body slam. It's the age-old fatherly thing to do. The moment I did it, I realized then that it wasn't as commonplace for us to do like it used to be, but man, did it feel good. I think he felt that same way too.
What ensued was a game of "King of the Mountain" on the bed top combined with another game of "The Floor is Lava." It started out just me and JB, but don't count my daughter out, oh no. That chick is 100% ooey-gooey gumdrops, but she likes to wrastle (yes, it's spelled how I want to be), so she got into the mix too.
We were going hard. It was fun, it was funny, we were laughing, like good ol' belly laughs. I saw my son come out again. I saw that ol' energy, that little boy energy that is full of vigor and relentless. I tossed my 14 year old son around because I'm not losing, heck no! And I'm not going to let my daughter win either. Oh no, she gets her way enough, LOL. Eventually, I won't be able to jump like I do and slam like I can.
We were all getting tired so we took breaks and paused when this movie came back on after the commercials, and the moment the commercials came back on it was "Game ON!"
We played. God, that was fun. Playing board games is fun, playing video games is fun, going out together is fun, doing stuff together is fun, but I'll tell you what, playing like that together, roughhousing, wrastling, pushing each other off the bed into molten hot magma, nursing each other's injuries along the way, it made me so happy and it felt so amazing to do that again.
I loved seeing my little boy come out again. He doesn't process his emotions like his sister. A year ago they moved away to Charlottesville, VA. The court awarded my ex-wife with the rights to take them to Virginia with her. So life has been different for them for the past year. They're adapting and adjusting as best they can, but, of course, it has been different. That's why I said that "he doesn't process emotions the same way his sister does." Sure my son has gotten a bit older, granted, he's a guy, a total bro, so there's that too, but in that hotel room, for a brief moment in time, I saw the spirit of my son again. And on his birthday, it felt really special. I loved it.
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| An older photo. One of my favorites. |
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