Letter To My Son - The Early Days - Part 3

This personal story I am drafting will be my gift to my son on his 18th birthday in six months' time, this and a video game because what 18-year-old is looking forward to a very long letter from his dad?

Over the last 18 years, I struggled to be a dad, just like my dad struggled before me. I was very lucky to share lots of time with you in the past, but the divorce changed that.

Now that you are an adult I wanted to tell you my story. A story that I wish my dad had told me. Maybe it's too early right now, but you might enjoy it when you get to be old and sentimental like me.

Click Back to Start with Part 1

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Letter To My Son Part 3

We landed in that beautiful place: Cotijo Melon.

A 45-minute walk downhill from the little village of Bayarcal in Almeria.
When you would step outside you had an awesome view, you could see everything and no one could see you.

You could and would walk around naked unless the Sheppard and sheep came by, but their bells announced themselves timely.

And it was near your grandparents as the crow flies.

I have walked it quite a couple of times and maybe you remember how tired you were walking to the river down in the valley...

And then you were not even halfway. You preferred to be carried and so I did because those little legs were developing rapidly, but this landscape and these walks could be a bit much and okay I did enjoy you on my back as well.

We did a hell of a lot of exploring, the river the ruins, and the little streams.

How awesome is that growing up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by water, rocks, and food.

You learned a lot about what foods grew in the surrounding nature. Opening almonds with a rock, walnuts, picking our strawberries, grapes, oranges, or climbing the the tree with dad to pick sour cherries. That little piece of heaven provided us with so many delicious moments.

And within a year or two you became a little mountain goat yourself.

You developed an awesome balance inside and outside, you climbed every rock and every terras.

Your dad kept struggling, I loved being in nature and working the land but that did not pay the bills. From the middle of nowhere, it was hard to continue the takeaway, which meant that our freedom grew and our income dwindled.

I felt responsible and useless at the same time, no matter how much I enjoyed the surroundings. It made it hard to live in the moment, and that was something you noticed.

One day your mom even talked with you about finding another dad, because this one was too stressed too often. I can tell you that it hurt hearing that, but I get it.

With your mom's health having ups and downs, I felt it was all up0 to me, but without a driver's license and speaking the language, there was only so much I could do.

Overall I experienced it as a great time, probably the best time because what came next was a school for you and a real job for me. You already went to school while living on the Cortijo, but only when you felt like it.

Unfortunately when you hit 6 years, it became mandatory. You did not agree with that and kept asking whywhy you should have to go to school. I tried to explain it to you by saying: "Because the king said so."

Well, "the king is stupid" was your reply.

That was the end of an era, an awesome era. But when you live in the middle of nowhere and there is not enough money for a car you know it´s time to get a real job.

That real job took us to the city of Granada.

It was wonderful to be together with you and see you grow up for so many years, but now it was time to work full time for me and 6 hours of school a day for you.

As soon as you went to school and got friends, that is when you as a dad see the influence of the world on your kid. The world outside of our little bubble, that beautiful happy place we lived in for those first six years.

You came home with stories about fighting parents and kids being locked up, things I was sure came from your friends at school.

With the bad also came the good, no longer living in the middle of nowhere meant that your granddad (my father) was finally able to visit.

Both you and my dad are giving signals with fingers and I tried to look normal. Because now I had to be a real dad, a working dad, a dad that only had time with you in the evening and on the weekends.....and holidays.

That first school in Ogigares was no success, it was way too big compared to the school with 20 kids you were used to in Bayarcal. And the teacher must have been a real prick, you brought two action figures to class....he took them from you taped them behind him on the wall, and said you were not gonna get them back.

You must have felt so small in that big school, with that jerk teacher. So exposed with your favorite toys on his wall and the inability to protest as you were catching up on your Spanish.

But both problems were soon solved. You were now allowed to watch Spanish cartoons as much as you likedand within months your Spanish was better than your moms & dads combined.

We noticed that when we went for a drive and I played this song.

We were not allowed to play that song ever again, you really felt ashamed that we did.

And that teacher we sorted him out....well sort of.

You moved to the Alpujara with your mom and I remained working in Granada and coming over every weekend.

It was so weird not having you around every day, but you did much better in school over there, so it was for the greater good.

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Thank you for reading.

Click the next button for the next chapter

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All Pics are mine