Picture this:

You have a son, a beautiful boy with sapphire eyes, a contagious smile, a crown of blond curls. It is his birthday. On the cake there are four candles and the little boy makes a silent wish:

Don't go.

Do you remember?

Of course this boy is too young to know that his father has chosen this day for his permanent departure. He is too young to know the ways in which adults can murder childhood, leaving you in tiny little pieces.

He longs to make you stay, to make you turn around and wrap him up in your arms, to promise that you'll always be together.

Every boy needs a father, no matter his faults.  Without you he will be lost.

But you chose to deny him this gift. Instead you turn away without looking back. You allow him to be taken in by another man, a stranger who wanted his mother and nothing more but reluctantly accepted the baggage that you left in your wake.

For that he made your son pay.

His childhood was quietly stolen from him, usurped by the clutches of a religion he couldn't understand. Your son became a sacrificial lamb for a cult-like dedication to "the truth." 

He had plenty of time to wonder why he wasn't good enough, why you traded him for a brand new shiny family. Despite this your boy's spirit remained in tact. He tried to bury the memories of  you but  never forgot the smell of whisky on your breath.

He wore a broken smile until he couldn't stand it anymore. Then he left, or tried to escape rather, to keep himself from drowning.

He went in search of you, of course, but found he had already been replaced. He quickly learned that women, or a particular woman in this case, came before children and that leftover little boys were better left forgotten.

Imagine his remorse when he was told he'd have to leave. Picture your  your wife picking up the phone and pretending as if she didn't know who was calling.

Now imagine his heart sinking when he walked into your mother's home all grown up and now a proud father with a family of his own. Eager to show his wife the photos of childhood that only remained on film, he found that all the pictures of him had been methodically removed.

His entire childhood, his existence, erased.

To this day the memory of that moment brings tears to his eyes. It gives him a good reason to drink more than he should.

Just like you.

As it turns out not everything disappears.  Your blood runs through him. Instead of the love he so deserved you left him with a legacy of anger and an ability to escape.

Most of all you taught him how to leave. How to drink. How to become numb to a world that is at times too unforgiving to bear.

Do you think about him now? When you look into the eyes of your new boy do you remember that first soul you brought into the world and then abandoned?

How easy was it to erase a life?

You are a thief of innocence and I can think of no crime that is worse.

I can tell you this: It is your loss.

I have never known a better man. Your son is kind and strong and compassionate. He is smart and intuitive and dedicated to his own child. He has integrity and a great sense of humor. He knows how to love fully and appreciates the people in his life who have shown him the kind of love he never got from you.

I am thankful everyday for this boy you abandoned. For if it weren't for your selfishness he may have never crossed my path.