Bringing the mug to my lips, I take a sip. It’s wishful thinking to hope the caffeinated liquid will chase away my errant thoughts.
Spoiler alert… it doesn’t work. My head falls back against the back of the couch, my eyes closed.
Luckily, I’m not left to stew in my own troublesome thoughts for too long. A familiar pair of feet pads down the stairs.
Oliver’s the only one upstairs, but even if he wasn’t, I would still know it was him. He always shuffles his feet when he’s just waking up.
He’s done it since he first started walking. If he ever grows out of it, I think I’ll probably cry.
I finally pry my eyes open when I feel him plop down on the couch beside me. “Morning, bud,” I say, turning my head to the side to face him.
He gives me a sleepy smile. His hair is a disheveled mess, and there are crease lines on his face from his pillow. I’m pretty sure there are drool marks on the side of his mouth, too. It all makes me grin.
“Sleep well?” I ask.
He nods as he yawns and rubs his hands over his face.
I love the big kid he has grown into. But in moments like this, when I get little glimpses of the toddler who would crawl into my lap, I miss that version of him.
I guess that’s what parenthood is. Every day is heartbreak paired with pure happiness.
Each day I love the exact person Oliver is in that moment in time, but I miss all the other versions of him that have led to him being him.
The change is slow, so you almost miss it happening. One day, you look up and realize your little kid isn’t so little anymore.
I know he notices the tears building in my eyes, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. He grabs a blanket from the back of the couch, draping it over his lap.
We sit there in peaceful silence for I don’t know how long.
Over the last year, I’ve grown comfortable with the silence, especially around Oliver. Right after Jess died, though, those long stretches scared the crap out of me.
I didn’t know how to handle it. I had no idea whether to talk or to keep my mouth shut. I questioned pretty much everything I was doing.
I was so scared of fucking up his world even more than it already was. He had just lost his mom. The last thing I wanted was to make anything harder for him.
Eventually, I realized he just needed me to be his dad. I’m not going to say our relationship hasn’t changed since then, but the core of it is still the same.
The way we communicate is different, but that’s about it. If anything, it has brought us closer together.
I’m far more in tune with him than I was before because I’m relying on more than words to tell me what he’s thinking and feeling.
“Do you want some pancakes for breakfast?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he whispers. If I wasn’t staring at his profile illuminated by the rising sun, I would have thought my mind made it up, but he said it.
He said it.
My muscles tense, fighting the reaction I desperately want to have right now. I want to close the distance between us and wrap my arms around him, but I remember what multiple therapists have told me.
If and when he uses words to communicate, don’t make a big deal out of it.
I drag in a deep breath, scooting to the edge of the couch. My eyes stay locked on him the whole time.
I blink, trying to keep at bay the tears that want to spill over. He doesn’t need to see me crying right now. He has seen me cry many times before, but this doesn’t need to be one of them.
“I’ll go make some,” I say, pushing myself up to stand. He turns to look at me, giving me a genuine smile. I swallow past the emotion clogging my throat.
Fuck.
