This personal story I am drafting will be my gift to my son on his 18th birthday in six months' time, this and a video game because what 18-year-old is looking forward to a very long letter from his dad?
Over the last 18 years, I struggled to be a dad, just like my dad struggled before me. I was very lucky to share lots of time with you in the past, but the divorce changed that.
Now that you are an adult I wanted to tell you my story. A story that I wish my dad had told me. Maybe it's too early right now, but you might enjoy it when you get to be old and sentimental like me.
Click Back to Start with Part 1
Letter To My Son Part 2
The Day You Learned to Say "That!" It was better than the day you first said, Dad. And if I remember correctly you said dad before you said mom, but don´t remind her about That.
"That," proved to be the most useful word in your little vocabulary for a long time. If you wanted something you just pointed and said That.
If I asked you where it hurt you pointed at the place and said That. That was simply awesome, my Dad life became so much better now we could properly communicate.
Of course that did not stop you from developing new words, some of which remain a mystery until today; like when you said "Mom & Dad are Kloekloefies." Or "they are just Cucalacas," of which I much later thought you might have meant cucarachas (Spanish for cockroaches).
Moving to Spain did not make it easier to understand you. Guess it didn´t make it easier for any of us, but it definitely made it more fun.
Spain October 2006
It must have been spring 2006 when your mom and I got the invite to join your grandparents in Andalusia Spain. Their house was finally finished and we could move into the apartment they rented in the little white village of Valor.
It was not the first time you left The Netherlands, you went with us to France in the summer of 2006. You learned to eat real French cheese and you loved that Brie, while your dad thought he ordered chicken and got frog legs.
But Spain was different, this time we were not planning to go back home. We sold the little bit we had and then drove to Spain together with your grandparents and their van full of our stuff.
We left the Netherlands with about 5000 Euro, a rental apartment, and me having 6-8 hours of work a week helping out your grandad Thys with his garden.
I have to tell you that was a huge change for me, it´s hard to describe the full impact. I went from working at least 40 hours a week to hardly working. Your mom's benefits now paid for the groceries and the gas and I was only able to pay the rent from my 'salary'.
We could make some extra money with our takeaway and catering service. Something we started for the ex-pats living in the region. Your mom certainly knows how to cook and that brought us a little extra cash.
The biggest change for me was that I lost my identity. I used to be that guy from the Coffeeshop Casa for many people and later DJ-Pluis. I got recognized quite a bit and had a reputation to match my status.
Here in this little village, I was Mr. Nobody. When you and I went out for walks I could not even answer a five-year-old kid when he asked me something about you.
I did not speak any Spanish. I thought I would pick it up quickly, just like I did during my three weeks in Nicaragua years ago, but I did not.
At home, at work, and even in the tapas bar we did not mingle much with the locals. That did not help my Spanish at all. I felt quite a little lost, here in this village on the other side of the world.
I really needed to reinvent myself, and figure out who I was and wanted to be now.
On the upside, it did give me time to write my first book. Every afternoon when you were supposed to nap, which you did not always do, I went up to the attic. There I sat, surrounded by bats, behind a very old PC typing. Typing a story about a life I think I led 1700 years ago.
I finished that story of 267 pages in that first year.
The other upside was you & me. Where I had hardly any time to see you grow up that first year, now I had all the time in the world. Or at least a lot more time.
We would go to the playground together, where you always hoped there would be "meis", that was your word for kids. Being an only kid you always were looking for other kids to play with as soon as we went outside.
In the summer months, we went to the public pool, again mostly you and me. You were the main attraction there, everyone loved you and wanted to play with you.
And you, you wanted to visit "Miss Ice" where we would get an ice cream that we would share.
At home we would always have to play with you, we painted, played with Play-Doh, or Duplo those big Lego blocks.
We tried to make you play by yourself with your toys, but just like sleeping in your own room, you did not enjoy playing by yourself.
Except for that one time, you did not come out of your room for 20 minutes.
You had done a great job rearranging all your books and toys.
When we were tired of playing you were allowed to watch some videos but only a select few.
Any Disney movie, Pooh movies, Teletubbies, and Boomba was pretty much it.
We did not want you to watch normal TV and we had our reasons. When we went for a holiday to your other granddad in The Netherlands you were allowed to watch Cartoon Network.
Those series..... they got you all hyper. You wanted to fight with your grandad and started to throw with toys.
At first, we did not connect the dots, but after a week we really understood what caused the change in your behavior.
Therefore we made sure you never watched any Spanish Cartoon channels. Combine that with growing up with Dutch parents and English Workawayers (people helping us out in exchange for food and a roof over their heads), and you understand that it did wonders for your English, but you hardly spoke any Spanish. Which became a serious problem a few years later.
But for now, things only got better, because after two years in Valor, we finally found what we really wanted.
A Cortijo, a nice house in the middle of nowhere with electricity from solar panels and water from the mountain. Surrounded by almond & olive trees, and the first neighbor at a twenty minutes distance.