Summary: \u00a0Ben reflects on the son he should have had.<\/p>\n
Rating: K \u00a0 WC 768<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My Little Boy Who Never Was<\/strong><\/p>\n Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone.\u00a0 Not a single drop of my blood in your veins.\u00a0 But you could have been\u2014should have been\u2014mine.\u00a0 My son . . . my boy . . . my little boy who never was.\u00a0 My life, but, more markedly, yours would have been so different, if only. . . .<\/p>\n If only what?\u00a0 If only I had known you existed?\u00a0 If only I had realized the perfidy that woman\u2014that witch\u2014was capable of?\u00a0 But I first heard of you from the lips of an angel . . . a dear, deluded, disillusioned angel . . . an angel with a bleeding heart.\u00a0 Don\u2019t blame her for the way your life turned out, my little boy who never was.\u00a0 She never knew you\u2019d been ripped from her arms, not by death, but by something much colder . . . by the calculated hatred of one woman, your grandmother.<\/p>\n But for the web of lies that spider so skillfully spun, you would have been ours.\u00a0 We would have raised you together, here on the Ponderosa.\u00a0 We would have watched you grow from baby to boy, from stripling to man and applauded each step of your journey.\u00a0 I would have taught you to ride and rope, to respect the land and, more importantly\u2014oh, how much more importantly!\u2014yourself.\u00a0 You\u2019d never have had to wander from home to discover who you were, if you\u2019d been my little boy.\u00a0 All those lonely years need not have been. \u00a0You\u2019d have known, from your earliest days, that you were loved, that you had immeasurable worth, that the gift of life was not a thing to recklessly squander.<\/p>\n You wouldn\u2019t have had your mother\u2019s love long.\u00a0 None of my boys knew a mother\u2019s love for long, but you\u2019d have had mine.\u00a0 I would have loved you like my own, as she loved my Adam and Hoss as if she had given them life.\u00a0 I would have poured myself into you as I did into them, and you would have had the guidance of the two finest big brothers there ever were, in addition to my own.\u00a0 You\u2019d have grown straight and tall, inside and out, like the trees that surround us.\u00a0 You\u2019d have breathed in our values along with the clean, pungent fragrance of pine.<\/p>\n And like Hoss and Adam, you\u2019d have grown up knowing that you had to give guidance, as well as receive it.\u00a0 You\u2019d have had a little brother looking up to you, adoring you, longing to be just like you, and you, like them, would have learned responsibility, if only you had grown up in this home as brother to Adam and Hoss and Little Joe.\u00a0 Oh, how I could have used your help with that little handful!\u00a0 But he\u2019d have helped you, too.\u00a0 You\u2019d have learned much more than responsibility if my Joseph had been part of your life from the day of his birth.\u00a0 You wouldn\u2019t be the sober young man with a heart full of secrets and a past best forgotten that we finally met.\u00a0 You would have learned laughter from Little Joe and zest for life.\u00a0 Maybe you\u2019d have picked up his penchant for mischief, too, and a double dose of that might have been more than I could handle!\u00a0 But, at least, you\u2019d have known the joy that is Joseph, as well as the perception that personifies Adam and the loving heart of Hoss.\u00a0 Strength of body, mind and soul\u2014that\u2019s what your brothers could have given you.\u00a0 What a difference it might have made!<\/p>\n I think we could still have made a difference in your life, Clay, if only you\u2019d given us the chance.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t have to run from trouble, even though I know you did it out of love and concern for your brother.\u00a0 Cartwrights face trouble together.\u00a0 Oh, I know you weren\u2019t a Cartwright, but you could have been.\u00a0 I\u2019d have gladly given you my name, my home, a place in my heart.\u00a0 You could have been\u2014should have been\u2014my third son.\u00a0 But that you never were.\u00a0 That place belongs to another.<\/p>\n I hold him now in my arms: flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, heart of my heart . . . my little boy who is\u2014well, was.\u00a0 Joseph is a man now, no longer a boy, but heartbroken as a child, he weeps in my embrace.\u00a0 He weeps for the brother he has lost, and though my eyes are dry, my heart weeps, too, for all the wasted years, for the love I might have shown, for you . . . my little boy who never was.<\/p>\n \u00a0The End<\/p>\n \u00a9 July, 2005<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summary: \u00a0Ben reflects on the son he should have had. \u00a0<\/p>\n Rating: K \u00a0 WC 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