How Much I Love You

 Words cannot express how much I love you.  

Lightning struck over the polished houses, the twilit road rose to meet me.  A dark cat scurried off into the bushes, someone's blue room echoed the flashy gloom.  My evening constitutional was interrupted by a silent blast out of the sky, materializing some electric mirror that was gilded by pain.  The revelation hit me like a zap from a seraphic continuum, that you were sent to help me recover what I'd lost.  

When you were born my brother left me, the only man left in my life.  Now there's only you.  It's as if he'd relayed a baton to you, a baton I've seen change hands too many times in my short life.  He would have been asked to be my best man if I had to ask anyone; that's why we didn't have a traditional wedding.  Something in my bones told me he'd say no.  If you left me like he did, my heart would break again, like it has so many times.  If you were like him, I could still forgive you, as I forgave him.  You're just a part of the eternal mirror that reflects my soul, displaces those who don't love me with those who do.  And you do love me, just as he did, whether you'll know it in the future or not.  But he does not love me anymore, and one day you may not either.  I can't bear to imagine why; what it is I do or say that makes them run away.  There has never been a stable man in my life, not one whose been by my side going all the way back through childhood.  I had one once, but he forgot me.  Now I grow up with you instead of him, and you're everything he was before the Rift.  You remind me of him so much, baby boy.  The way your face lights up a room; all the energy and vitality you possess; the sweet noises you make when you're trying to impress me; your stubborn persistence.  He is like a child who never grew up, but hopefully you will.  It's another cruel twist of fate the Gods have given me, that my baby brother who I loved so much would turn from me just after my son was born.  May you never know the pain he has given me, or the pain his father gave me, or the pain his father gave him.  Fathers hold up the mirrors that their sons are reflected in, even if they aren't from the same one.  That mirror doesn't always have to reflect the past or the future.  For once I would like it to reflect the present, to keep you here in my arms through all the mad sorrows that beat my body blue, like the lightning that struck my mind in two. 

I saw an exhibition today, a series of four paintings by Thomas Cole, called The Voyage of Life.   You were the joyful child, as I once was, watched over by your grandma, the guardian angel.  She watches over us both, though you wouldn't know it.  Your mother is the angel too; even me, for that matter.  You will grow up in a wondrous garden of earthly delights, America's Eden- the fruitful vales of the west.  New things will appear as magical as they ever will on this river of peace and safety.  We'll steer you down it, as far as we can, through the meadows of spring and into the mountains of summer, where you'll scale the peaks of ambition, seeking love, approval, achievement, and all the other yearnings of man.  We'll still be with you, but you'll steer the boat on your own as we watch from the shore, marking every move you make through the frontier of idealism.  When you're older a terrible storm will come, which came for me when I was quite young.  My journey through the summer of youth hardly existed, as I went straight from childhood to adulthood without a moment to spare.  I hope your journey will be different, that when you reach the autumn of mid-life, you'll have enjoyed this stage of youth that I never had.  The storm will toss and turn your boat as you struggle to maintain control.  The river will narrow, bringing you to your knees, making you pray to the universe for a break from the struggle, for survival through the murky shadows.  You will grip your boat with every ounce of strength you possess, fighting the elements against throwing you into the hostile rapids.  Finally, in old age the river will come to the open sea, where the water is calm, and the wind stops blowing.  Here your angels will return to you, inviting you up to the beautiful light that parted the storm.  You'll relent with winter's cold surrender, feeling gratitude for having survived the tumult of your sins, shaking your head at your mistakes and cherishing those fonder memories of brighter days.  That's where we'll be, child, waiting for you at the end of the river, with an antidote for your pain and a halo for your head.