When You Were Small
When you were small, you trusted everything. You were so curious and innocently gave trust to anything you encountered. In a lot of ways, that helped you. The family adored you and you were never afraid to smile, never doubted yourself. You weren't spoiled: you didn't know what that was. You were just accepted because you accepted all that confronted you. You used to play with fate. When you were small, I would look down from paperwork and find you asleep in my lap or when I woke late at night, I'd find you curled up on my chest. I never opened my arms to you or presented an inviting paternal image, in fact, I was quite indifferent. But that only intrigued you more. When you were small, and I found you in my lap, you'd be smiling in your sleep, clinging to me. Giving love I feel I neglected to give back. You felt it was safest to be near me, trusted me to take care of you simply because that's what fathers do. Your trust. In a lot of ways it hurt you. Because your brother's stopped playing games. And where's your father now?
When you were small, you never screamed when you cried. So we never knew when you were upset or hurt. Unless we watched you. Very closely. In fact, you didn't make much noise at all, just little noises when you were going to sleep. You had a lot of bad dreams. When the faint noises stopped coming from your crib, that was our cue that you couldn't get to sleep. I remember coming over and peering in through a veil of night to see you, tears washing over your round cheeks, shaking like you were seriously distraught and I wondered what an infant could know that would hurt them like this. When you were small, I would carry you around the house at night and hum songs your mother knew the words to until you were still in my arms and your little noises were again audible. You scared us so much; our first child and you seemed so frail, so elusive, so temporary. You never screamed when you were hurt and we were afraid we'd find you too late, afraid we'd lose you. You didn't change with age. You never made noises to help us trace your feelings. We couldn't tell when you were distraught. And even though we watched you so closely, we lost you. To ourselves.