This week, my son should be turning sixteen. I should be watching him stand in the doorway, tall as his dreams, his shoulders carrying the weight of years he never got to hold. I should know the sound of his voice—a deep, steady river of a thing, shaped by time, by life, by moments that never were. I picture his hands—strong, gentle—gripping a steering wheel, spinning a basketball, holding onto a world that I will never get to know through him. Would he love music? Would he write? Would his laughter split the air, cracking open the sky the way joy is supposed to?
I find myself reaching for him in the quiet spaces, in the shadow of his name unspoken. Sixteen candles should flicker this week, melting wax into memories made. But the cake remains uncut, the song unsung, and time bends in on itself like a cruel trick. Because he never grew into the man I see in my mind. He never took a breath past eighteen months. And for sixteen years, I have carried the weight of someone who never became—loving the ghost of a boy who is forever just beyond my reach.

By Shaun Sima
https://chef-pocket.com/aboutme