The only matter.

To watch you walk away with him is to sink my heart inside. Pulled through my toes and lay limp at the ground, I watch now empty and vulnerable. I want you to be with him, I want you to understand this. I know how much you need him, and I see the wake of hurt that was left in his retreat from us. I know that he is the only person who can release your pain. I know all of this and still I feel the plunge of despair when I see him approach you. For I cannot predict how fleeting this behavior may be. Good intentions and proper actions do not lay on the same plane, one matters not to you. I know this and perhaps this is why I held my breath at his request to see you.

You are happy. At first timid, much as I expected. It had been so long for you, six months to an adult is only half a year, yet placed on the timeline of a toddler seems much extended.
You shyly regard the man you once knew, as you shuffle your feet on a rocky path. You look to me for reassurance as you grip my hand tight with your tiny hand. You are nervous and I tell you, 'it's okay.'

For you, it may not be.

And yet, at once you are off. Light on your feet as you run to the playground, a familiar sight in this unsteady world, you scream with happiness and he follows. He follows you everywhere. With every turn you maneuver, he is there. For once, I am not. I sit, a patient observer. A tinge of jealousy washes over me before I beat it away. This is what you want and more importantly, it's what you need.

You address him with a title that has not been spoken in your presence for some time. To hear you say the word is challenging for me. It comes natural for you, yet still so foreign to my ears. Now, I watch as you laugh, as you run. He is chasing you, helping you reach and pushing your swing. He laughs at your silly games and breathlessly attempts to follow your rules. You are happy.

As the sun dips lower in sky I call out a warning, it is almost time to go. I hold my breath as I regard the two of you and wonder with what restraint I will be met when I call out to you once more.

Lost time is not recovered in a few hours. You knew this, as you gripped my hand once more at the end of your play date and determined you were ready to leave him again. There were no tears, no overwhelming emotions. You held you head high as he hugged you good bye and you told him to drive away. You made me stand and held my hand as he careered down a rocky path, growing smaller in the distance until once again he was gone. You declared to me then that we should go, standing around we were wasting time.

So we went and I gathered my emotions from the playground floor and watched as my little man so resolute in his actions climbed into our car determined. Time is a complicated thing, wasted not by us, but cherished in every embrace. So we went and you were happy.