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I Never Thought These 7 Words Would Haunt Me for This Long
I can’t hear them without feeling the sting of time I can never get back.
“Dad, will you please play with me?”
Seven words are all it takes to haunt you for a lifetime. For years, my oldest son asked me that question nearly every day, sometimes twice in the same hour. His voice was small, still wrapped in the softness of toddlerhood. It was the kind of voice that makes strangers smile in grocery store aisles, the kind of voice I would give anything to hear again.
He was four. Maybe five. Still small enough to want time with me more than anything else in the world.
And too often, I said “Not right now.”
I wish I could tell you that was rare and that I dropped everything and got on the floor with him more often than not. But that would be a lie. The truth is, I almost always had something else going on. A laptop open on the kitchen counter, a video game I didn’t want to pause, a work email I was halfway through, or a load of laundry to fold. Dinner to prep. Calls to make. My hands were full, my head even fuller with stress and anxiety.
There was always something.
