Dear Son,

Everyone knows what love feels like. The love one feels for their mum, best friend, cat. Everybody loves, it’s inevitable.

Everyone knows what love feels like. The love one feels for their mum, best friend, cat. Everybody loves, it’s inevitable.

But there is no love like the love for your children.

Dear Dri, I hope you will love how I love you someday.

You will never know the extent of this love, really, until you have your own children. And even then, I don’t know that a father’s love is as strong as a mother’s. I feel guilty that I have no love as strong as this for anyone else, not even close.

And of course, I love your father, my parents, my family, my friends. But they have absolutely nothing on you.

It sounds harsh, but it’s true.

I felt guilty when you were born, at how I’ve not returned the love that my mother felt for me. And I know you will never love me as much as I love you.

But that’s life.

I didn’t know that I never understood the purity of this love my mother felt for me until I had you. You’re only 6 months old, and the love I feel for you now is more than when you were first born. I cannot possibly imagine loving you more tomorrow, but somehow, I know I will. Ryan Reynolds described the love he feels for his daughter by saying he would use his wife as a human shield to protect her. Well, I would sadly but damn rightly use your father as a human shield to protect and defend you. A thousand times over. And I wouldn’t even hesitate. It’s nature – my body is biologically programmed to feel this way.

It’s a love so strong, words really don’t do it justice.

I was told that you’d one day break my heart because I love you so much. I’m not sure I believe that, but if you somehow manage to, I just want you to know that I’ll forgive you. Because that’s what mothers do. Because the type of love I have for you is the purest and deepest, yet the simplest.

Intrinsic.

Unconditional.

Genuine.

Abundant.

Full.

Infinite.

True.

If anyone will judge you, hurt you, treat you badly, and they will, because life is unfair and those things are unavoidable, always know that you can fall back on me and I will pick you up and make it all better.

You’ll be a teenager getting up to mischief one day, and I’ll be ready for it all. I’ll be watching you from a distance as you make those silly mistakes, ready to comfort you or kick senses into you.

I’ll be cruel to be kind.

I’ll let your father yell at you when you mess up, because we are human and can get mad too. But our intentions and objectives will always be mutual – your well-being, your health, your happiness.

For now though, I’m treasuring all the cuddles, smiles, and gummy dribbly kisses. I’m accumulating memories and appreciating moments that I know I will need to look back on nostalgically on some days, because it would be unrealistic of me to assume there won’t be any bad days with you.

I will be that mother-in-law your girlfriends feel nervous around.

But don’t worry, I’ll be nice.

I’ll be nicest to the one.

To the one you find to be your true love.

Just know it will take me some time to let go, to let you be loved by someone else, and to let you love someone else. You won’t understand this, possibly ever. But your future wife will once she becomes a mother (assuming and hoping for the love of God that you’ll have children of your own, because I want you to experience this love!).

My darling boy, I love you so much that I question whether it’s healthy, rational.

I feel so overwhelmed with it I cry sometimes.

Maybe it’s because it’s still new that I don’t quite know how to deal with it. I see the way other mothers look at their children and instantly understand it. We speak of it together and share our descriptions of it. But we still don’t capture and give it its true significance, no matter how beautiful and well-articulated those explanations are.

My feelings are conflicted. Every day, I feel sad that the day had to come to an end because we were having so much fun. Because I know that the small things you do now will end. But every day is so much fun. Because each day there’s something new to enjoy and love too. So although I’m sad that the day is over, I’m also so extremely excited about the next day to come.

Tomorrow will be better, somehow.

And I’m *so* happy that I get to be with you again tomorrow.

As I kiss you goodnight, I’m kissing goodbye to some small things you’ll never do again, but also greeting the new things you’ll do tomorrow.

My dear papi, always have faith in my love for you.