I was cleaning my son's room up a bit today.
He ran off in June of last year, as a result of 8 years of parental alienation.
His mom finally "won" last summer.
He was set up, armed and triggered and he ran. It was not pretty.
He broke Elaine's foot. He involved the police and he lied. As he was taught.
I have so many marks in my back from his knives.
His mother raised a good boy. Her little mercenary.
"Turn counterclockwise to unscrew knife" on the hilt. Yea we know it's from her.
But he's my son.
It does not matter.
I may have yelled a tad, when it again scraped my ribs,
but the love was always there.
I was just disappointed.
His room has been sitting there, untouched for almost a year.
Right here by my work desk.
I have not seen him since. I have not heard a word.
A big change from having full custody and having him around every day.
Yes it has been much more calm.
No lawyers. No court. Just silence. And debt. And wounds. And stress. And loss.
And a missing kid.
A kid missed.
Summer is coming.
Getting back outside reminds me of him.
The back yard, the brown mark from the swimming pool.
The hockey net, the DAM hockey net.
All the things I have not seen since last summer.
I have not wanted to clean up his room. I just kinda moved some boxes in there.
A bit of sage, I picked in Cache Creek that summer. Actually a lot of sage.
Some prickly roots, an old PC.
A shelf I did not need.
I hardly knew what was hiding under and behind.
But today I did it.
I walked with my bleeding heart in my hands and removed that black shelf.
All the sage, many little bags with dried sage, carrying the scents of that summer.
Behind was his Halloween bag from 2012, hanging on a cupboard door knob.
Angry bird eggs. Hard candy. Lots of unwrapped paper.
His usual mess. Why use the garbage can.
Two perfectly good whoopee cushions, no leaks.
Captain Underpants, several volumes.
Bits of hockey gear.
And there his shoes, laces still tied.
Trodden flat from not being able to tie bows yet, aged 12.
The shoes were hard to find.
So much him.
He would not be able to fit them anymore, so I threw them out. That hurt.
They are kinda sitting on top of the garbage can.
Being wrong, there.
It feels like they should still be useful, because that never happened.
Nah-ah!
It was all a dumb, impossible mistake that just needs to be fixed.
One more idiotic attack, easily deflected with lawyers and more debt and court and .....
We'll just rewind time and it will never have happened.
It was too unfair.
Shoes are still good.
They're just sitting on top of the garbage can.
For now.
My cover up mess on top of the bed. Layer upon layer like an archeologist, brushing away
the aeons of dirt. Scared. The stuffy he got when he was four and his family fell apart.
When he was taken away and told his daddy did not want to be the daddy any longer.
The first lie. He never believed it was wrong, because I could not correct him.
I could leave every lie and give it to the wind or make it twice as bad.
No drivers license for the karma truck.
I remember thinking I would do anything to help him and support him.
There are lots of little leaves of sage all over the bed.
Then two or three viking swords, from when he had a Danish family.
Grandma and grandpa miss him too.
Grandpa took him hunting and fishing that year, when I finally got custody and he could
go see them.
Sage symbolizes strength.
The knights had sage painted on their shields.
It did not help me much.
I gathered the sage in my hand and smelled it.
So much stuff there I wanted to do with him. RC cars and planes, robotic kits. Microscope, never unwrapped. Dad and son stuff. Always under the gun, always made suspicious, always put down.
He never got into it. Could not allow himself to have too much fun with me.
I was the enemy, you see. Whenever Mom was in his mind.
Much stuff was never unwrapped. Train stuff. Lots of train stuff. A half finished white railroad table with no tracks. Hundreds of dollars in small nails and grass like fabric.
His robe. Clogs. Laundry bin with a pair of socks in.
A moment frozen in time when he suddenly with no warning had seen his room for the last time.
He left in the clothes he wore to the rec center.
All else is there. The perfect imprint of having a son, once.
A son who is now almost a year older. Soon a teen.
His bag of hockey gear is under there. Zipped. Everything too small. Hockey sticks. Too short.
Toys of a child and he will be a teenager soon.
But I am sure we will just rewind reality. It's all new.
I curse the mother and the lame, toothless family law system.
This I cannot forgive.
I have its big hairy fist squeezing the juice out of my heart right now.
My little daughter misses her brother too. She talks of him every day.
She wants him back. Every meal. Every trip into nature. Every car ride.
Still.
"I wish Ben was here".
I miss my son.
I have to try and forgive the summer and let it in.
Right now, it just hurts.
