In my memory, I once thought joy could be infinite. That there were moments so powerful, so filled with warmth, that they would last forever. The day The Kid was born was one of those moments. The happiness I felt back then seemed untouchable, like a shield against anything life could throw at me. But life, as it turns out, always finds a way to test that belief.
The Kid, who once symbolized pure, unfiltered joy, now finds himself navigating a world that is far from the one we had imagined for him. His parents have grown apart, their love buried under resentment, distance, and time. They have been separated for almost two years now. For the past year, The Kid has been living with his mother and grandparents, finding some stability in familiar faces after years of moving from place to place.
Still, the questions linger. Other children ask, “Where is your father?” And The Kid, with the kind of strength that no child should have to muster, wonders the same. The absence of a father is not just a missing presence but an unspoken void, a reality he is still trying to understand. The world can be unkind to those who don’t fit into its neat definitions of family, but The Kid is stronger than that. He carries a quiet resilience, one that has already been tested more than it ever should have been.
But in all of this, there is still hope. Unlike before, The Kid now has routine. He wakes up to the warmth of a home filled with voices that care for him. There are mornings when he groggily rubs his eyes, reluctant to leave the comfort of his bed, only to be met with the gentle encouragement of his mother or grandparents, nudging him toward the day ahead.
He goes to school now—not just as a place of learning but as a space where he belongs. He has friends to run around with, hands that reach out for his on the playground, voices that call his name in laughter. The walls of his classroom don’t just hold lessons from textbooks; they hold the steady rhythm of a life that is, in some ways, finally finding its footing.
There are moments of pure, unguarded joy—when he races down the street, the wind in his hair, when he shares a secret handshake with a friend, or when he curls up beside his mother at night, listening to stories that make the world feel a little less uncertain. He has family close by—people who love him, people who will never leave. The absence of a father may still be a question that lingers in his mind, but it is no longer the defining feature of his days. Instead, his days are filled with routines that provide comfort, with faces that remind him he is never alone.
And perhaps that is what matters most. Not the fairy-tale version of happiness we once believed in, the kind that is grand and everlasting, but the small, everyday moments that keep him strong. The simple joys of childhood, the security of knowing he is loved, the resilience that is growing within him—these are the things that will shape him.
The joy may not have been infinite in the way I once thought. But The Kid? He is infinite. In resilience, in courage, in the way he keeps moving forward. And that, more than anything, gives some hope.
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