The Crying Game

I can't stop crying lately. I was watching ER last night and lost my shit a few times (and man, was I glad that I was alone). I choked back tears the other day when my sister and I were talking about my never-ending heartache and then again, when I was on the phone with a friend's sister, telling her how amazing and supportive her brother has been to me.

And then I broke down some more when I thought about my younger son and how amazing he's been, not just right now, but pretty much for his entire life. And I cried the other night when we were in a therapy group for families with kids on drugs and I saw my wife cry when she said how guilty she felt for letting go of our older son and then some other woman, who was also crying, told my wife how that can't be true because otherwise she wouldn't be sitting there crying.

And I cried yesterday when I was listening to an old episode of This American Life about unconditional love and also a few nights ago, when the great little actress who plays Becca consoled her dad, David Duchovny on Californication. And I know this is all about my older son and my fear of losing him and I was crying again this morning, when I reread a magazine story I wrote in the form of a letter to him ten years ago.

It's the words in that story that usually get to me, but this time it was his black and white photo, taken when he was eight years old, and he's just staring into the camera, unsmiling and uncertain. And that's the same face I saw when I woke him up to go to school earlier this morning and he surprised me by dreamily saying, "I love you, Daddy."