I Waited... But You Never Came

Most people might find it hard to believe that I remember my second birthday... But I do...

At least some of it...

The couches were arranged to face one another... I am sure this was not ordinary... For it still feels unfamiliar to me now... after all of these years.

I sat beside my mother, she was to my left... opposite us were an elderly couple.

A large stuffed toy sat on the floor between us... closer to them than I...

A cat... Black and White... With glass bead eyes...

It was not much smaller than I... if at all.

I remember the elderly couple vaguely... they sat slightly apart... watching me... cautious... careful to not overstep... to not make me uneasy.
How I would love that cat... from that day until the day he was retired... worn, torn, outgrown...

Oh, how I wish I could remember more about that day...
My second birthday...

that I could remember Him...

Sitting there...

Opposite me...

How I wish I could remember Him... Or even that he were there...

I might trade all of my memories of that day for just one tiny glimpse of Him.

I spent so long waiting...

Hoping he would come...

To tell me he loved me... To help me make sense...

He would be my answer to why my eyes were a different blue to my siblings...

Why my hair was curly...

Why I had freckles...

He would sweep me up in his arms and make everything in the world OK...

He would protect me...

Love me...

Save me.

I was sixteen when I began my search for him...
When the memories of my second birthday began to make sense...
An elderly couple...Grandparents...
A Nan I would never again see... Those memories all I would have to keep...
A Pop that I would quickly grow to love and cherish...
for not nearly long enough before he would be taken from me again... after all those years apart...
Years Filled with hope...
Perhaps I was naive...

Not prepared for the hurt...

The pain...

The loss...

I did not search long... The answers came so quickly...

That I would never see my father...

That I was too late...

That I had lost what was perhaps never mine to begin with...

My heart broke... Oh, the pain I felt that day...

and every day since...

 When I think that he left me just one month before I found him...

That I was so close... Yet, so far.

And so, To my Dad... Here is...

I waited... But you never came