My Journey Back To You

Dear Leo,

They say the days are long, but the years are short. I didn’t understand what that meant until I found myself watching your childhood slip through my fingers like fine grains of sand, impossible to hold on to no matter how tightly I clench my fists. You are growing up without me, and that thought alone feels like a dagger twisting in my chest.

Each week I see you, you’re different. A new word, a new expression, a new sparkle in your eyes that wasn’t there before. You are blooming into yourself, and I am only granted fleeting glimpses of your becoming. It’s as if I’m trying to memorize a garden I’m only allowed to visit once a week. I carry those moments with me like fragile petals in my pocket, terrified they’ll fade before I can press them into memory.

I imagine all the things I’m missing: the first time you said a new word and your voice carried it with pride, or the sound of your laughter echoing through the house. Are you dancing to music in the living room? Are you picking out your favorite color? Are you afraid of the dark? Do you still carry your stuffed bunny when you sleep? These are the sacred, ordinary moments that stitch the soul of childhood, and I am missing them.

Missing your childhood feels like grieving something that’s still alive. It’s a strange kind of mourning. You’re here. You’re alive. You’re growing. But I’m not beside you to witness it. I’m not there to cheer when you conquer a new fear, or kiss your scraped knee, or whisper “I’m proud of you” after you accomplish something new. These moments only happen once. And mine are being stolen by the hands of time and a cruel system that insists on keeping us apart.

People say, “he won’t remember this,” as if your memory is the only thing that matters. But I remember. I will remember for both of us. I’ll remember the ache of empty arms, the sound of a quiet apartment where your laughter should be, and the weight of longing so heavy it knocks the breath from my lungs.

Sometimes I close my eyes and try to piece you together from memory. Your baby-soft curls. Your little hands grasping mine. The warmth of your body curled against me. But as the weeks stretch on, the details begin to blur, and that terrifies me. A mother should never have to struggle to recall the scent of her own child’s hair.

Still, I keep showing up. I show up to our hour and a half like it’s the only hour that matters in the entire week, because to me, it is. I absorb every detail of you: the tone of your giggle, the curve of your smile, the way your eyes light up when I say your name. I hold those moments like sacred relics. I write them down. I etch them into my heart. I breathe them in like air.

I don’t know how long this ache will last. But I do know this. When we are reunited, I will never take a single moment for granted. I will memorize every word you say, every dance you do, every silly face and bedtime story. I will be the keeper of your childhood, even if I was only granted stolen pages instead of the whole book.