18 hours is such a very short time, barely a blink of an eye in the greater ticking of time, yet 18 hours is the time it took for my heart to be bursting with love and then bursting with pain that has never gone away and now this year 50 years will pass and that pain seems sharper than ever before.
I now have friends who are 50 years old who have children and grand children and I have genuine joy for them and their parents who have had the joy of their children, their grand children and now their great grand children. However away from my joy is a deep, deep sadness in my heart that I am not one of them, for I do not have the child who married and became a father, or a grand father. I look at the parents of my friends who are the same age as me, or just a little older who have this family born from them carrying their DNA and part of me longs, a larger part than most will ever know that I wish I had the same and yet their is an empty space that will never be filled, because of the last of those 18 hours.
I was there at your birth, watching as the miracle of life took place, laughing with the mid-wives and trying to keep your mother calm. I had just managed to get you a teddy bear which was waiting for you and would always wait for you. I had so much hope and so much love to give, for. you my son would know your father, as I had not known mine. You my son would have known your real grand mother and she would have loved you. You would have known your other family who took me and treated me like their son, my sisters and my brother, we would all be the complete family at long last.
When I left to tell others of your birth and to celebrate it, this special life that had come into being and to change my clothes and to prepare for your coming home, I had no idea what was to unfold and how that day would change.
By the time I returned you had passed and I never got to hold you and the lasting memory I have is a tear falling down the face of your mother onto you and. then onto the floor in slow motion.
And then the awful practicalities of life took hold, registering your birth, where your name was spelt wrong and then registering you death at the same time. Two forms that should have been decades apart and one that I should never had had to do, so as far as officialdom is concerned your and death were recorded in a cold unfeeling ledger that is all that is left to know you existed and were loved.
Time quickly passed, where the years have gone I just don't know, yet each year on the day of your birth and the day of your passing time seems to slow down just at it did when I last saw you. Others dear to me have, Marc whom you were named after, your grandmother Maisie, your great grandmother, those who would have loved you as their own grand son and Symie who would have taken you as his brother. Great changes have taken place, history has been written by those who wish things to be true and make judgements accordingly with their untruths.
I sit alone many times wondering what sort. of father I would have been to you, the loving encouraging protective one that I tend to be with others, or one which others have projected upon me. In my heart I know which is true, because I really love you and would want you to be the best you could be and where ever life had taken you, I would have blessed you.
Now I am with Aly, my beautiful wife and we speak of you often, for you are so much a part of us. As much a part of us as all of our family is and loved as much, the only difference is that we have pictures of them to remind us of their being here and of you dear son, we have none.
Some think it is just the mother who remembers and feels the pain, that is not true for fathers do to. I no longer have contact with your mother, yet I must think that she misses and remembers you too. She has other children and another son now, but you were her first and I must be kind and think of her kindly and the tear that broke her heart.
50 years ago I was still but a child with out the experience or maturity of life that I have now, nor the calmness of my soul. Now I am old, my body is breaking down and my mind not as good as it used to be, yet my heart remains full of love, full of love for you my dearest son. Perhaps the tears won't flow as I am afraid of letting go, so these words here are tears, my tears of sadness and of love and one day in the millions of years we will meet again and these tears will be tears of love and happiness when we meet - in the meantime I leave you in the loving arms of your grand mothers.
