Daddy is gone. He has been out of town this weekend. We miss him when he's gone. The family is not complete, as the kids say.
Arthur has been sick, so we sent Adaline to church this morning with friends while I got some rare one-on-one time with my son. At one point we were doing our separate things--Arthur zoning in on a toy and me in the kitchen. We were listening to Gnarls Barkley (our favorite uplift-the-mood band). He suddenly commented on the lyrics of a song: "Mom, did they say, love is gone? Love is gone away?" Yes. "I don't like that song." OK. Separate time continued.
Seven hours later at dinner, he randomly teared up pleading, "I don't want love to be gone. It can't go away. You can't stop loving me!" He was trembling and genuinely concerned that love could be taken away. I assured him that I would never stop loving him for any reason.
I can't believe how sweet he is! Did he worry all day about that song? Why bring it up 7 hours later? Until that point, all he knew was that Mom and Dad love him and that is true and can't be undone. That is the safe world that he lives in...Until Gnarls Barkley announces that love is gone away, and his world is turned upside down. It's both beautiful and terrifying how much your child's outlook on life is influenced by YOU as a parent.
Arthur told me that we should never listen to that song again. Thankfully he never connected the "love is gone" phrase with the title of the song: "Gone Daddy Gone." That would have really thrown him in a tailspin.
