The biggest part of me

We stood on opposite sides of the gate, facing each other, a lifetime of words lost between us.

How did we get here?

I know, but I don’t know how to say it so that it doesn’t sound like it was your fault. The word fault gives me an uneasy, sick feeling. I don’t know how to say it so that it doesn't sound like it was your decision. Didn’t it start with your decision? Or was it hers? Or must I place the blame on the ones before you for not showing you a better way? Your parents.

You were, like so many times before, in town to visit her kids. Like so many times before I didn’t know about it, until you pitched at my gate. I guess that is just your way.

I’m not like that. I didn’t get that from you.

Everything else though, I pretty much did.

A quiet, resilient spirit. The gift of observing and finding solutions. Athleticism.

Unfortunately, I also inherited the very special talent of not verbalising my feelings and showing very little emotion.

And here we stood. Neither one of us able to say what we truly felt or what we really wanted to.

Well, here it is.

I’m sorry for the years we lost. I wish we could get it back. I wish I weren’t that scared kid that didn’t know how to tell you that I needed you to pick me, at least just once. It is such a childlike dream, but I wish we could have run away, away from the screaming and fighting and drinking and trying to please. Wouldn’t we have been okay if it were just us? Couldn’t we have lived a peaceful life? Would we not have been the biggest part of each other’s lives today?

You said thank you for the early Father’s Day gift I had sent you and reminded me that Father’s Day was only next month. I sent you a vintage sign of the cigarettes you used to smoke when I was little. The ones I will never forget, because when we quickly stopped at the café, I had to hop out to buy you some. I still have the name burnt into my memory. I sent you a poem I wrote for you a while ago, trying again to capture the silent knowing we share. I sent it early, maybe just trying to win back some time, but also to let you know that I think about you every single day and not only on Father’s Day.

Anyway, you had to leave. I couldn’t let you in, because we were in isolation. Something you would have known before driving to my house if you had phoned. But you never do.

And I am left with questions I will probably never know the answers to.

Do you also feel regret?

Do you also wish to grab the lost time and pull it so close to your chest that it suffocates you?

Maybe you have your own questions too and in another life we can both find the answers.