Leetle one,
I didn't expect anything from you this trip, only your presence and smiles
with your wife. But, last night I found so much more in you. The
miles rolled by with the three of us in the back seat and you wound up sleeping
in my arms.
And, the feelings and memories started flooding in...
First it was this familiarity, a sense I had done this before, held you
in my arms, run my fingers through your hair like this. Why were you so
comfortable with me, when you are with so few others? Why have I always
felt you were so special, without really knowing you?
The first images were you as a child. You at eight and thirteen. But
those did not surprise me, I have always been able to see people at other
stages of their life. But then I saw you in my arms. You were maybe eight,
dressed in a white dress shirt with a starched collar. You were asleep
like you were last night, only you were so much smaller. We were in a house,
with people all about us. I in my dress and you in your proper little clothes.
It was a party, a gathering of some sort, and people were generally happy.
But you, so small and quiet, slept in my arms at the edge of the room.
I loved you. You were amazingly important to me, but I don't think I
was your mother. I think maybe your aunt. Were you mine? Am I the one who
looked after you from day to day? Or, was I just someone who helped and
cared you?
I held your wife's hand last night, as I told her the tale. And she looked
at your face, and said how childlike you appeared right then, how young.
I thought she was seeing beyond the physical, until later when you laid
back across my lap and I saw for myself. I saw the face of the child I held
years ago.
I knew you were special to me. Until last night I never knew why. Thank
you for coming Andrew. You will never know the gift you have given me.