(and no one prepares us for this kind of absence)
It’s almost one in the morning. I’m tired. But I can’t sleep. I’ve already tidied the kitchen. Organised cupboards. Folded clothes that didn’t even need folding. Talked to some of you. Talked to friends. Watched episodes of a series and, by the end, couldn’t even tell you what it was about. Ate sweets without being hungry. Tried on clothes. Wandered around the house. Stood by the window. Wrote. Cried. Wrote again. Cried again. And through all of it, there is one thing I can’t get out of my head. My oldest son.
Yesterday he spent the day with his dad. By the time he got home it was already after 9 p.m. He went straight to bed. But before falling asleep, he started crying. He told me he didn’t want to go to sleep. I asked him why. He replied:
- “Because today I spent more time with Dad… and I like you more. I want to stay awake with you”
I smiled. I hugged him. I told him that Daddy loved him very much too. That it was good to spend time with both of us. I told him more stories than usual. Until he fell asleep. This morning I woke him up for school. On the way, he told me his head hurt. That he wanted to stay home with me. Just playing together. I thought it was homesickness. The kind of homesickness I’ve spoken to you about so many times before. I took him to school. At the end of the day, his dad picked him up. He’s sleeping there tonight. And tomorrow night too.
Shortly after dinner, I got a video call. It was him. Crying. With a fever. A headache. Earache. And in that moment, the whole morning came crashing down on me. I remembered him telling me his head hurt. That he wanted to stay home with me. I smiled. I thought he just missed me. I thought he was simply looking for a bit of extra cuddling. I took him to school. But he really was ill. And ever since, I haven’t been able to shake this guilt. Because there is a kind of guilt that no mother can explain. The guilt of realising, too late, that your child had already been asking you for help… and you didn’t understand.
And here I am… five minutes away. Unable to touch him. Unable to kiss his forehead and pretend, like all mothers do, that somehow the fever might disappear. Unable to stroke his hair. Unable to whisper in his ear that tomorrow he would wake up feeling better. I know his dad is taking good care of him. I have never doubted that he would. This isn’t about trust. It’s about something else. It’s about discovering that there are parts of motherhood that now have to be shared too. And I never imagined I would miss them this much. Because no one tells us that when a family separates, the nights of fever get divided too. The kisses on the forehead get divided. The glasses of water carried to the bedside get divided. The bedtime stories whispered softly when they can’t fall asleep because they don’t feel well get divided too. And there is a part of me that feels these moments should never be taken away from a mother. Or from a father.
Some days I think this might be the hardest part of separation. It’s not the logistics. It’s not the calendars. Or the backpacks. It’s realising that there will be important days in my children’s lives… when I simply won’t be there. Not because I don’t want to be. But because I no longer can. Maybe that’s what so many people don’t understand when they say, “They have two homes.” They do. But when a child is ill… he doesn’t want two homes. He just wants comfort. And today, for the very first time, I couldn’t be the one to give it to him.
People say this gets easier. That we get used to it. Maybe. But tonight, I learned something. There are absences we never truly get used to. We simply learn how to survive them. And maybe that’s what so many separated mothers and fathers do in silence. Every single day, they survive the moments in their children’s lives they wish they could have been part of… but that now belong to the other home.
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