Dear L.,
It's been almost two weeks since I last saw you at the airport, where your eyes seemed about to burst with every airplane you saw take off, and it's cold and rainy here in Leeds which may be why I'm thinking about you and everyone else at home so much these days.
You're not even two years old, and although it'll be years before you can understand any of this, I thought I'd write you and tell you how much I miss you anyway.
I had a great summer with you. The beach, the sun, the bars...nothing quite compares to how much I enjoyed watching you kick a ball with near adult dexterity, or walking up and down the streets with you looking for dogs whose tails you could pull. It baffled me how you could grow so much in such a short time and as amazed as I was by you I couldn't help feeling a strange sadness at the pit of my stomach.
I want to apologize for not being there with you most of the time, for missing out on all the daily wonders you experience. I am very far doing something that I love, and when you grow older you'll realize that often we have to sacrifice very special things in order to follow some crazy passion.
Because, in a very irrational way, I was kind of hurt when I found out that, with your limited vocabulary, you could ask for a lolly but hadn't given me a name still. It was a relief, however, that you ran up to me the day I got back. You are learning so much every day that I was scared you might forget about people you don't see often in an attempt to retain all you discover about the world around you.
Don't think, however, that I'm not up to date on your daily antics. I knew, from the moment you started doing it, that for some inexplicable reason you used the Basque word for 'grandad' to call your grandfather (although nobody in our family speaks Basque). I laughed my head off when I heard you had angrily bit your grandmother when she told you off for playing with the VCR. And I had a picture of you dressed like a bear, looking like a little dancing brown teddy bear with two pokey ears, a couple of hours after you went to your town's carnival parade. I still use it as a wallpaper and see you every time I check my phone.
And I try to make up for my abscence whenever I'm home. I'll gladly put aside my football phobia and kick a ball with you for hours, and shout with the same effusion as when Spain won the world cup every time you score a goal. I'll let you sit on my shoulders as you stare out the garden walls at home, noseing about the street and mumbling a never-ending soliloquy that only you understand. Not to mention the time spent on the suspiciously warm kid's pool, where you love to splash about during the hottest hours of the day, when everybody else is having a nap.
As I said, one day you'll understand that we often have to do painful things in order to achieve what we want. It saddens me every day to think that you are changing by the hour and that I'm not there to see your transformation. But I also hope that one day you'll also understand that although people may be far from each other, they can also be extremely close, and that distance does not mean you aren't in my mind every day, and will always be there.
Luckily I didn't miss the greatest event you've experienced yet, and I think that I can also call it the greatest moment I've lived through. I was there when you were born, and held you before you were even a couple of hours old. I'm sure one day you'll be able to do the same, and you'll understand why I can't quite find any words to write what it is that I felt.
I'll keep on following your daily news, and three months isn't that long if I think I'll be seeing you after them.
Could you find a name for your uncle in the meantime?
xx
