(but it took me the whole day to realise it)
I’m on holiday with my family. We arrived at a restaurant after spending the entire day together. We’re already seated. My children are beside me. My brother, sister in law and nephew are sitting across from us. My parents are on the other side of the table. The food starts arriving. They taste it. They smile. Compliment the dishes. Talk about what an amazing day we’ve had. In between, they start planning the next day. They want to go fishing. They discuss what they need to bring. Talk about timings. What they still need to buy. Then they go back to talking about the food. The fish that tastes like orange. The zest on top. The sauce. Everything and nothing. A normal family having dinner after a happy day.
And I wanted to be there. I genuinely wanted to be interested in the fish in front of me. I wanted to listen to the conversation about fishing. I wanted to enjoy dinner. But I wasn’t. Because, in the meantime, a couple with two children arrived. A father. A mother. Two kids around the same age as mine. They sat right next to us. And I started noticing everything.
The father serving the children. The mother wiping their mouths. All four of them talking at once. The kids interrupting their parents. The parents telling them to eat a little more. Completely ordinary things. Things that family probably won’t even remember.
But I will. Because I started thinking that my children won’t have many of those moments anymore. Not in that way. Now there are mum’s holidays. And dad’s holidays. Dinners with mum. Dinners with dad. Beach days with one. Beach days with the other. And even when we manage to break the rules and do something together, it isn’t quite the same anymore. Because there is always a home where someone isn’t. An empty place at the table. Someone who could be there… but isn’t anymore.
We are still a family. I know that. But we are a different kind of family. There are two homes. Two routines. Two lives. And somewhere in between them are my children, bringing together two families that no longer live as one.
My nephew starts getting tired. My sister in law picks up her phone and shows him a video of the Panda. We’re already having coffee. My children climb onto my lap. One on each leg. They put their heads together so they can see their aunt’s phone. The three of them sit there, squeezed together, laughing. And I look at them. I kiss each one. Then again. And again. I bury my face in their hair for a few seconds. And use the moment to wipe away a tear that had been there for far too long.
In fact, that tear had started much earlier. Before we had even entered the restaurant. When my brother and sister in law asked me to take a photo of them. The same as the one I had taken two years earlier, in that exact same place. First with their son. Then without him. And I remembered. Two or three years ago… it was us. Me and him. First with our eldest son. Then without him. An apparently ordinary photograph. But suddenly it contained an entire life that no longer exists.
We left the restaurant and headed towards the centre of the village. There is always someone singing around there. Live music. People sitting outside. Children running around. And I kept smiling on the outside while trying to hold together everything that was happening inside. Until we passed a little table selling necklaces. I asked my eldest son to choose one for me. He chose one. I told him that I would wear that necklace all the time now. The necklace he had chosen for me. He was happy. He hugged me. And, in that hug, I remembered something else he had asked me recently. Whether I could wear the necklace he had given me with his dad. The necklace with the engagement ring. The one he himself had handed to me on the day his dad asked me to marry him.
Maybe this new necklace won’t erase that memory. It doesn’t need to. But maybe it can become the beginning of another one.
My youngest asked to be picked up. He took my hand. Started dancing. And I went with both of them towards the man who was singing. I danced with them. Sang with them. Laughed with them. And, in that moment, something happened that I didn’t even realise I needed so badly. My heart filled up again. I didn’t think about who was missing. About who, two or three years ago, would have walked that same path holding my hand. I didn’t think about the couple beside us. I didn’t think about the two homes. I didn’t think about the past. I didn’t think about what my children had lost.
I looked at them and, for a few minutes, no one was missing. We were whole. And maybe happiness after separation is this. Not stopping missing someone. But discovering that there are moments when that absence stops taking up all the space. And yesterday was one of those moments. It was a difficult day. Very much so. But it was also a happy day. And maybe both things can be true at the same time.
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