She’s flown on a plane. She can order food in a restaurant. She knows what a latte is.
She knows only love. So much so, that it scares him. That he worries she’s not tough enough and I have to remind him that she shouldn’t have to be, yet. Not at three. Not while she has us. She is not lost.
I sometimes wonder if the man before me was ever a boy at all. As if walking more miles than you are old, to a corner store with a pocketful of change after midnight for dinner, is something that could be left to boys. As if dropping off a package to a stranger in the dark was ever a job for a child.
Now he is a man. A man who beat the odds. All of them. A man with a diploma. A man with a degree. A man with a destination and a dream.
A man who has a daughter with a future, so far removed from his past. The boy within him safe. The boy within him finally found.
I see him now and again — the boy. He comes at Christmas and some Saturday mornings for cartoons. He slurps his cereal and laughs at his own jokes. He dances and makes up songs to sing. He’ll even color if she asks him. He is always welcome here, this boy.
This is his home.
We are his family.
He is not lost.
***
Read more from Liza at LizaDora.com.
