It's been over five years now...it doesn't to seem that long at all. We were going into town to eat, when my oldest son told that we had to make a stop before going to the resturant. We had pulled into the local cemetary, which isn't on my list of things to do. He pulled around to a special section where the children are laid to rest. He asked me to get out and go with him...strange but I went anyway. We walked a short distance, when he stopped and stooped down to brush the leaves off a small plaque that had toys on it. I looked down and say "Daktoa Dumas"....here is were my first grandson was buried.
I had lost touch with my two boys for almost twenty years. I had a hole in my heart for all that time, as I looked for them and they looked for me. There was so much of their life that I had missed....this being the hardest.
As I looked down, hot tears streamed down my face...a knot formed in my throat...and I heard a scream that I had never heard, before tearing my heart out. I don't know how long I stood there...how long I cried...there wasn't a lot that I do remember, except...here in a hole...was my blood. My son, and the rest of the family sort of just stood back and left me alone. My wife told me, it was the first time she was really afraid of me. My rage was bad. Rage against God for taking him...rage against the woman who had seperated my boys and I...rage against the world. For the first time...in a long time...I felt the fire of pur hate, something I hadn't felt in many years.
But as I stood there, I thought of all the things Dakota and I never had the chance to do. I never got to hold him, to watch him grow, to fishing, to watch him take his first steps. So many things that we would never get to do.
After, what seemed to be a life time, my wife took my hand and it seem to the effect she was looking for...the hate and rage was gone, and in it's place...nothing. We stood there for a long while, and my son told me he didn't know any other way of breaking it to me. He and his younger brother(who is Dakota's dad), couldn't think of any other way to tell me. I had the urge to smash his face, instead I just held him real tight.
As the yaers go by now, I something catch myself thing what we would be doing right now. I have other grandchildren, and don't misunderstand, I love them all...but Dakota, he'll always have that special part of my heart. I've lost a lot in my life, two sisters, my mother, friends who were closer than my own brothers...but this, this is something...a pain...that I know will never leave and never heal.
Dakota, Pawpaw is sorry that I wasn't there.
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This blog and those to follow are ones I've written over the past few years.
