Missing My Son

My step-son J has been on my mind a lot lately. I started dating his father eighteen years ago when J was 2 and I was only sixteen. For sixteen years I loved him like I have loved my own children, worried when he was sick, been proud of his accomplishments and felt the joys of seeing him accomplish his goals, both large and small. From the time he was 12, he loved with my ex-husband and I and was an everyday joy to me. J's father and I divorced four years ago, and even after that J and I stayed in touch, talked on the phone each week, visited regularly. He is twenty now. I was lucky enough to get to attend his high school graduation, which was a hard-won achievement for him. About two years ago, though, he just disconnected. One day we were talking and laughing and then I never heard from him again. He stopped returning phone calls, broke off contact with my three children. (brothers and a sister he had always been so close to.) I'm at a total loss. I miss him terribly. I want him back in our lives. I wrote him the following letter but haven't sent it yet. I'm not sure if I should. I don't want to push him; I just want to understand.
Dear J,

I’ve been thinking about you almost constantly for a long while now, wondering if you are alright mostly, wanting so much for you to be happy. I wish I knew what happened to separate us, if only so that I could find some way to repair the rift, and close the space between us again. I watch the photos you flick up onto your web pages with my heart full of questions I wish I could ask you myself. I wonder if the girl in the picture has captured your heart, if your smile is genuine, if you remember how very much I love you. I wonder if there will ever be a place for me to go back to being your stepmother, or at the very least your friend. The hole your absence has left in my life is unbearable.

I was looking at K’s baby pictures last night, and there you were, always the proud big brother. I worry that I never got the chance to tell you how wonderful I always thought you were. Even when you were small and K was brand new, you showered her with love, never pushed away her affection or said so much as one word to hurt her feelings. She adored you then, and does even now, though you not being around really crushes her. I don’t know what to tell her to make it any better either. Hell, I’m still not sure what to tell myself. I message you as often as I think I can without you pushing me completely away. I never want you to forget how very loved you are here, and how desperately we want you to come back to us when you are ready. I will wait forever if that is what it takes. And if your worry is about what to say or how I will react then have no worries, id welcome you back if all you wanted to do was cuss me out. And I don’t have a harsh word to say about the time you’ve been away, except maybe that I’d be thrilled to find it over. I worry that the more time that passes; the harder it will be for you to feel comfortable about coming back at all. Just know that you don’t have to worry, you’re a welcome addition to my life anytime—no questions asked. You still have a home here with us if you ever need it, no matter what.

I remember with crystal clarity the last time I saw you. I was in the car outside of Z’s preschool waiting for the time to come to pick him up and you stopped in the church drive and got out to talk to me for a moment or two. It was the week before thanksgiving, just a few days off of the anniversary of us losing Dad and you stopping meant the world to me. I remember your smile that day prominent as always, no glitch in your mood, nothing at all to indicate that years would pass before I would see you or hear your voice again. I sometimes wonder if that day will ever come or if the every growing time between us will keep you away forever. I have no way of knowing, just as I have no way of knowing why, though I question myself daily trying to find all the answers or the missing piece that will bring you back into my life again.

It has been a full eighteen years now since the day you came into my life, making me, over time, a parent for the very first time. I remember your little face as well as I do your last smile and I wonder what could have gone wrong for our relationship in between. I have always been so proud of you, your accomplishments, but really just who you are. I have never met anyone as even tempered as you were growing up—no teenage angst, or rebellion against me for any reason. Never once in all of those years did you ever say “you’re not my Mom” or any other word to hurt my feelings or question my authority. In return I tried to keep the authority to a minimum. I'm sure it didn’t seem that way you at times, but I did my best to temper your father’s rash anger and impulsive decisions and to give you as much stability and love as I could despite my inexperience and my young age. I know there are dozens of ways in which I’ve failed you though. Not the least of which is that things between your Dad and I dissolved, leaving you alone with his bad temper in that damn apartment. Never does a day go by that I don’t wish I had pushed harder for you to stay here with us when your dad moved out with J. Looking back there are an endless number of decisions I would make differently if only it would mean I could get you back somehow.

I think a lot about my decisions, especially the ones I made those last few years, how hard I was on you when you failed English in eleventh grade or didn’t complete some damn homework assignment on time. I wonder if those were the things that pushed you away, but then I remember the day you came home and gave me a ticket to your graduation—so totally unexpected-and told me that without me you wouldn’t be graduating. I remember how I cried when you crossed the field to get your diploma—I knew perhaps better than anyone how hard you worked to get it and I have never felt that kind of pride in anyone before or since.  In my heart I carry all of these moments—your first date with S—the night I picked you guys up at Kennywood and drove you home-- your first job, the day you came to show me your new car. That day was something—I was able to watch you move further forward in life than I had ever been able to. I relaxed into the idea that you would settle into adulthood without the mistakes your mom and dad and I had made trying to get there ourselves. I let myself relax and breathe a little easier thinking that you would be just fine. That every step away would lead you closer to happiness and back to us again in the end. I don’t know what went wrong or how I can ever begin to fix it without some clue from you as to how. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do, you know, to get you back in some small way, an email or a phone call, just some tiny corner of your world from which I can watch you move into adulthood. Those are the things I wish for these days.

That said, things here change almost every day. The kids get bigger and Z seems to get smarter and R more devious…things I want you to see for yourself sometime soon. Your brothers and sister are slowly turning into different people, and I hate the idea that you won’t be here to help shape that, to give them someone worth looking up to. I would love for them to have the traits I have always admired in you. Some I think they will come across on their own, because even after two year it is stunning how clearly they remember you, even Z who was only three and is now chasing down kindergarten in just a few short weeks. But I wish you were here for them to learn from (even the mischievous stuff that big brothers are good for, like when you taught R to say hot babes and he got us both in trouble repeating it in Kindergarten. His teacher was so mad that all I could do was laugh, but it was so typical of the two of you—that brother stuff.) I want those moments for Z too. For him to realize how lucky he is to have been born your brother.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the time when Dad was sick. You stand out in my memory for all the things little and big that you did to make my life easier then. You helped with the kids like they were your own, never complained, helped us take care of Dad, and watched over him a few times when Mom and I needed to be somewhere else. I remember how proud I was at the funeral home when the vets presented you with his flag. I still have it for you. It’s not mine you know, but yours, and you deserve it every bit as much today as you did back then. Even though Holly had RJ and Kevin had Brian, you were, in many ways, my Dad’s first grandson of 14 grandchildren; the first he really got to know and enjoy. So many times he told me that if all of his grandchildren turned out as well as you he would be the luckiest man in the world. I know better than almost anyone that it must not have been easy for you to live there with us and my mom and dad, almost like having two extra parents every time you turned around, but you were a pleasure to live with. I can’t even begin to tell you how much emptier the house seems without you. I cant even begin to accept the idea that you are lost to us for good.

I’m sure you're more than sick of reading this by now, though there are a million more things I can think of to say. So I guess I’ll leave it for now. Just know that I miss you more than any letter will ever express, and there isn’t one thing in this world that I wouldn’t do have you back in our lives, even in just some small and simple way. Please know that you will always be welcome, and there is no such thing as too much time passed or too late to come back home.

Love,

Still your Mom