I wonder then I pray

Dear Anthony-

(MGBTTT): Saturday August 13th, 2005. Two months since your eighth birthday.

I sit here wondering, was it a good birthday? Were you happy? Or did you feel something missing? Will another one of your birthday's pass before we see each other again? I wonder this and so many other things.

Can you ride a bicycle yet? What was your first word and your first sentence? I wonder do you have girls chasing after you yet?

I was watching you from across the street from the court house earlier this year. Your mother and your aunt on either side of you, holding your hand. I wanted to yell out to you, Son... Over here. Its me. Your Dad. I love you.

Then I thought about you and the fragility of youth, and the importance of holding onto your youth for as long as possible.

Then the moments passed away and you disappeared from sight. The closest we've been since you were two years old. Now you're eight. And I wonder, will it be another six years?

I pray son. I've prayed for a long time that the lord makes the way for our reunion. And patiently I wait. But for how long?

I wish that I had more answers than I have questions, but a famous poet named Rilke once wrote, "You haven't been given the answers because you would not be able to live them. Instead, love the questions. The answers will come when you're ready to receive them.¨

So I sit here on a Saturday afternoon in my office at your Uncle Rob´s house in Florida. I sit here, loving the questions. I sit here loving the time that I have to sit here and think about you. To think that one day, those answers, will someday come. And pray that when that someday comes, you will come with them.

Until that day, I pray that God shows us the way. In a way that fosters love where there might be hate. I pray that God brings light to all those places still in darkness. And I will continue to pray, with all of my might,that your mother and her new husband feel the power of my prayers and the God that hears them. And its in Jesus´s name that I pray.

Warmth and so much love,

Dad