“These foolish things remind me of you”

Labradors running on Atlântica Avenue sidewalk, without Henrique running after them, make me miss him so much.

And also children nestled in their parents arms.

All the suffering children on the great gallery of abuse.

Children, children.

The paint smears on the couch bed bought for him, marks of his drawing games.

His toy cars (so many!), specially the “puleece” (police) ones.

The jigsaw puzzles, all of them too easy for his image-based thinking. I am only good with words, and I’d be proud and moved when he assembled 60 pieces with impressive speed.

Books, one in particular: “Son”, by Guto Lins, which he would look at without really knowing what it was about. He would often take this book from the shelter at the school library, his teacher told me.

A series of books about animals we invented a game for. I’d ask: “what's behind the tree (or the stone, or the boat)?”. And he’d answer, his way: “Chicken, rabbit, dog, cat, frog...”.

“Cai, cai, balão”, “Sambalelê”, “Marcha, soldado”, “Ciranda cirandinha”, “Eu fui no Itororó”, children's songs that he, when he was younger, liked to dance with me while we hug — later he grew tired of them, not of hugging.

“Ice age”, “The Incredibles”, “Chicken Run”, “Finding Nemo”,
“Oliver”, “Aristocats”, “101 Dalmatians”, “Have you been to Bahia?”, “Garfield”, “The Polar Express”, a lot of Mickey’s (“Meek”), every child movie and cartoon he loved to watch, picking one or two at a time and watching them hundreds of times without getting tired of them. I even miss the boring Winnie the Pooh.

Going to the movies. Always tense, but always alright, even if sometimes he went out of the theater or decided to run near the screen — but there was one day when he began to eat popcorn from the guy sat next to us and I had to go and get one for us; I came back really afraid, but there he was, like a king in his throne, watching “Ice Age 2”.

Laughters. Of many of them, only he knew the reason.

When he would ask for “cangote” (the back of the neck) — I taught him to say that and he loved it — and came to my shoulders.

He grappling me from behind, arms around my neck, when I sat by the bed to watch a cartoon with him.

His head on my chest as we, laying on the bed, watched the cartoon.

Sunny mornings to go to the beach.

Rainy nights to play at home.

His demands: “turn on”, “light”, “guaraná”, “egg”, “beans”,
“popcorn” (actually “pock-corn”), “pizza” and so many other I keep on hearing, even without him here.

The pizzas we shared every 15 days — Saturdays or Sundays evenings.

The coke he, for some time, would insist on having in the same restaurant, on the same table every night I went to pick him up to sleep with me.

The ice creams and chocolates, given occasionally, but relished with a touching delight.

Photos, of course. Photos.

And the emptiness is bigger the nights I don’t hear “daddy”. When he realized he was alone, that’s when he would say loudly and clearly the magic word (to me). In order to sleep again, he would want me to stay for some time by his side on his bed, or he would come to my bed and reach for my arm. Now, the helplesness is mine.