Vincent's poem
Twenty minutes with him
Twenty minutes with him, maybe seventeen, it’s not much but at least I’ll keep them and, at the same time, it’s so long when one only has just that.
Twenty minutes of happiness and tears, mixed with admiration, love which for the first time in thirty years is totally uninhibited, completely free, with no hope of return, with no hope of satisfactions (or disappointment) as will be the case for other parents.
Just twenty minutes just of love like that, for no reason, as was so well explained to me, simply because I am in front of this little boy who held on to be with us, this little boy, mine, my son, the first and he’s the most beautiful, it’s true.
Only twenty minutes for him to talk to me, to warm me, to comfort me, to give me the strength to go on and to support his mother.
Twenty minutes, the most intense, the deepest, and for now, the most beautiful of my life, twenty minutes, during which he convinced me that I was someone important, irreplaceable, because I had wanted him to be there, hope for him, despite my doubts and my pains, because he’s so strong against all hope, and he did hold on.
Twenty minutes that were so feared, but when I would have given away all I have that I would have even stolen, a lot and from anybody, so that they last twenty one minutes.
Twenty minutes for him to educate me, my own son, because he teaches me the important things in life.
Twenty minutes to go from concept to reality, to put a name on this face so often repeated, whispered, murmured with longing.
Twenty minutes to be able to continue to talk to him, to be able to tell him how much I love him and be sure that he believes me, to be able to explain to his brothers and sisters who will come after and tell them that they too will be loved until the end.
Twenty minutes not to teach him rugby, history, drawing, wine and all those things that I don’t yet know.
Twenty minutes to be able to long for his brothers and sisters.
At the twenty first minutes there is in the end that peaceful feeling that we have made the right decision : As life had chosen to take him back from us, him so cute, we couldn’t win but we were right to fight until the end.
And then, a week of difficulties : the administrative formalities, the arrangements, the lack of understanding (that we had to face without being aggressive) of those who explained to me again after the birth of my child that he didn’t have the right to live, that he was not normal, had many problems, that it was no use, that that story had at last finished, that we could move on to something else…
One week for those people present at those moments to take a special place in my life…
One week to say goodbye to him.
Vincent, Peter's daddy (born and died 27th September 2005)
