‘Dear Son: A father’s letter of love and advice’

Hi My Dearest,

I simply can’t thank you enough for sharing your last ‘morning snuggles’ photograph with me, with you and your infant baby gazing into each other’s eyes. What an encounter! Eye-to-eye, soul-to-soul!

As open-mouthed, he is staring at you intently, I wonder what is going on in his tiny head?

I feel so cosy?

I could stay like this studying you forever?

I feel so safe and delighted?

I am yours and you are mine?

This moment, whether I know it or not, is getting etched and ingrained in my memory and my heart?

Well, whatever, but you, my son, certainly made my day!

As an enthusiastic member of your son’s ‘fan club’, I have been suffering from strong withdrawal symptoms recently, as no new photographs of him were forthcoming. This photograph has certainly been worth waiting for.

Is this bliss, or bliss? How he seems to be totally absorbed in taking you in through his wide-open little eyes, soaking you in into his world and sensing that he is in your world. It can’t get any better than this.

Indeed the saying, that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, is born by this photo. It leaves me speechless with delight.

Being nearly two months old, I can see how much more he can consciously engage with you and respond to you.

I remember when the first time I could catch sight of you, the moment, when you were born, making your way out of your mum’s womb. Seeing your face first was the most moving experience of my life. Your skin was still wet with fluids, your face somewhat smeared with mucus-like white stripes, as if you were face-painted for a special ceremony.

You looked like a freshly baked hot cross bun straight out of the oven.

But you not only looked brand new, you also looked very old. Your skin was still somewhat wrinkled, having just been released from bathing for nine months in amniotic fluid.

I found the sight quite extraordinary: that I could see you brand new and simultaneously as old as if you were just before your death. Well, the latter aspect of the sight quickly faded, as all of you now just started to glow as a precious new life; a special gift to us and the world.

Then being able to hold your tiny body in my arms made me melt, every time. And when, from around the age where your son is now, we could both look eye-to-eye and see each other as I held you, well, those occasions were indeed indescribably moving treats.

My Dearest Son, lap it all up, while you can, because these precious moments, days and months fly away quickly. But fly away as they will, may these experiences stay with you for the rest of your life to remind you that they did happen: That you and your gorgeous offspring were able to truly look at each other, eye-to-eye.

Lots of love,

Papa