I’ve spoken a lot about my relationship with my son and occasionally I’ve mentioned having a ‘little brother/newest son’ in our lives. We have talked a great deal about what that would mean and why a ‘younger brother” and not an Older bro or even Uncle (because I was not opposed to those other two ideas either) was the choice we were going to make together. To explain it better, I want to tell you about last night.
My son and I were in bed, or I should say ON the bed. We lay there, in the most intimate of ways without it being sexual. Touching, kissing and talking. I reminded him of some things I said when we met years ago, when we first began. He was incredibly sensitive and ticklish and would jump and giggle constantly at my touch. I told him that as time went on and he came to understand that I loved every inch of him and his skin got used to being touched, he would stop being ticklish in that way. I said this as I gently traced my fingers across his ribs and he didn’t jump, only smiled.
We talked about how we and our bodies have changed over time. I reminded him of our first conversation about what I found attractive about him, what made me want to be with him. I had told him way back then that the ‘thing’ I loved about him was Him, his truest deepest self and I could see it clearly even back then. Each moment is a snapshot, each love unique to that time, and our love evolves with each new ‘snapshot’ as we’ve grown and changed over the years. I loved the young, wide eyed him whose world changed being with his Daddy just as much as I love the him who’d grown into such the extraordinary person I now call my Son. What has remained constant is the ‘him’ that I loved. It was never about the outside features or the obvious personality traits, I was always in love with the him he was deep inside, the him he would become if he was nurtured, cared for and protected.
I asked him: Thinking back to when we began, could you have imagined the person you’d become today?
He said: “No. I really couldn’t have seen it back then.”
I Said: That person, the one you are now, is the one I saw within you ten years ago. You’ve grown into an amazing, compassionate, wonderful, kind and gentle person with an incredible capacity for love. I knew he was within you the moment I set eyes on you the very first time we met in person. It was him, the real you, that I was in love with. I love the you that you were on every step of this journey.
He said: “That’s why I want to find a younger brother. Because I want to see you do that. I’ve felt it, but I want to watch you and him as it happens over time.”
I sat there for a while, his head snuggled against mine, and I was very quiet. We never break physical contact when talking like this, even on hot summer days we still hold hands. We’d spoken at great lengths in the past, deciding what it would be like to have someone in our lives on that level and he’d told me that he (it was actually his idea) wanted to give someone the opportunity to share our life together. He wanted to share our world, not just our bed (that was a very far distant second), with someone. It hit me VERY hard to hear him put it this way. The clarity, honesty, and reality of that desire to watch and participate in the process as I’d been with him. Even as I write this down, I’m a little more than misty eyed because it means the culmination of the journey that brought us here. I couldn’t be more proud, happy or deeply grateful for the incredible gift of our time together but especially of this moment.
He’d become a Daddy in the most important senses and for all the right reasons. He didn’t want to step into the role as much as he wanted it to happen again for someone else. He wanted to remain my son but, on a deeper level, to be a partner in sharing that with another person. It meant now that his ‘submission’ was complete. He was my full equal, and chose to be my son. I would happily have reversed the roles in the situation he described, where we had that ‘other son’ in our lives. I’d have taken the Grandfather/patriarch role and helped guide him through the troubled times that can happen between a Daddy and his son. That was not at all what he wanted. He wanted me to be a Daddy for another boy, one who needed someone like me, and to share our lives and that process of growth with him.
What do you say to that? I didn’t know how to respond really. It had always been something more than a sexual fantasy to me because the greatest joy I could imagine would be having a happy boy in each arm as we drifted off to sleep. It is a very powerful image in my mind because it made me acutely aware that there was indeed a space in our lives that wouldn’t diminish our connection to each other but amplify the love we shared.
The idea is nuanced but not very complicated. It even has a corollary in the outside world: That of two parents who decide to have a child. That decision changes the binary (two person) relationship into a ‘tri-nary’ (three way ) relationship without changing the love that made the addition of that third possible. It means that we both would love him equally as he would love us both equally in return in our own special ways as each love is unique. This boy would not only have a Daddy but he would also have a Big Brother to care for him. Everything equal, everything shared, all responsibilities equally maintained, and even intimate times together would be that same way.
Those times where we were intimate, would not be confined by any ‘rule’ like Daddy has to be there or any variation of that. He and I would be allowed to be as intimate or sexual with our new family member at any time without judgement or jealousy so long as it never became strictly a one on one where the other was ignored or shut out from those times. No exclusivity but equality in its place. He would be able to cuddle with just Daddy or his brother without jealousy or any feelings of guilt for not sharing at that time because he’d be able to invite his brother to join as he felt just as much as my son would be free to join or leave it one on one between his brother and his Daddy.
It would be a perfect balance of freedom, caring, companionship, mutual understanding and protection. He and I are both very real people. That means flawed, fragile at times, and imperfect. I make no pretense about being a deified ideal Daddy. I only present myself as I am just as he would because to lie about such would break what could be real because fantasy wore thin. We aren’t interested in a fling, those aren’t our way. We want forever, and to give someone a chance to step into that willingly and to join our world. We’re after happily ever after and in for all the hard work that means to bring into reality.
This is what it means to be with Daddy, and what it would mean to join us as our newest family member. I’m not too old now to consider spending another ten years helping a boy grow into a son or Daddy as he chose when the journey was ‘complete’ as it is now with my Son and I.
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