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 hi
s 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.

Letter To My Son Part 1

Let me start by telling you a little secret, I thought you were going to be a girl. There was even a girl name: Ella-Chiara and then the doctor guy happened.

He asked if we wanted to know, and as we did not have a lot of money and needed to prepare everything over the next two months we said yes. Well, that, and the fact that we were curious a.f.

What´s up Doc?

"It´s gonna be a boy......"

En Serio???
There I was thinking you were a girl for seven months. For seven months I was talking to a growing belly, giving you the daily Baby Bulletin and calling you Ella-Chiara and now you turned out to be a boy.
Good thing was that I did not buy you any clothes, well except for one second-hand dress you will never wear.

The bad thing, we needed to come up with a new name & I needed some fresh air to deal with the shock.

Walking the streets a song was playing in my head, a song I heard last night during the Wednesday 80s party.
Kyrie by Mister Mister.

I needed something with the same rhythm and feel to it as Ella-Chiara. Twenty minutes later I walked into the doctor's office and said "How about Kyrian-Elijah?" That name you can blame on DJ Tom de Barman if you don´t like it because he was the one playing it.

Your mom was a bit disappointed, that she was not part of the thinking up the name thing....so I told her if she could come up with something better before you were born we could always change it.

21-10-2005

She couldn´t, but she came up with the idea that you needed a name for every element and so your full name came to be:
Kyrian-Elijah, Raven, Osiris, Sorin, Skye...KROSS.

And you took your time, you were 2 weeks late and when you finally started coming you took over 30 hours to be delivered. You were just in time, two more days and you would have been a Scorpio, and those...

You had to stay in the hospital for a couple of days, just to make sure everything was alright but the first night you got home I held you in one hand and you slept against my chest.

When you were born your mom and I were together for about 18 months, and within those months we made sure that 1+1= 3 welcome in this world KROSS, hope you like it here.

At that time I had two jobs, both in the evening as I was a DJ/Barkeeper and I worked at a petrol station. That meant that when I came home in the early morning I could give you your middle-of-the-night bottle before I went to bed.

It also allowed me to frequently put you to bed before leaving for work. You refused to sleep in your crib and we gave up after a week or two. We put your baby mattress in the middle of our bed, and there you slept like a baby.

Getting you to sleep like a baby was quite a challenge, you never wanted to go to bed but your dad had a little trick and a bit of help.
The trick was I would dance with you in my arms, the help came from Robbie Williams as that was the tune we danced to.

I remember how you climbed the stairs in our little rented house in Vught. You must have been 10 months old and you went upstairs, once you were halfway you looked back down and then kept climbing.

I think you climbed at least 10 stairs before you figured out you did not know how to get back down. Luckily someone was always there to keep an eye on you. That was back in the day before parents only looked at their mobile.

If we went out for a stroll you loved to feed the swans and ducks in the pond, and on a good day we would also see a passing train.

From a dad's perspective, it were wonderful but difficult times. I was used to living a sort of rock&roll life and all of a sudden I had to grow up. Become a semi-responsible parent.

I tried, I was able to be a loving parent. I became a bit more responsible, I stopped smoking weed. But working in a bar and being a bit of a local celebrity did not really help in becoming really responsible.

Not that it mattered to you. I never dropped you, and I made sure that I kept my jobs to pay the bills. Even though we did not make enough to pay for everything. We got a little help from your grandparents in paying the rent that first year.

So financially it was a little bit of a struggle but the worst part of that first year was you. Why couldn´t you just talk, write, or text us what was wrong with you?

Just kidding dude, not your fault. It was me who was not prepared, a baby does not come with an instruction manual. That meant whenever you cried we had to figure out why.

Is it food?
Is it sleep?
Is it pain?
Is it poo?

Clueless, I was absolutely clueless.

The best moment for me during those early days was therefore the day you learned the word "Die", which means as much as that.

That was the day I could finally understand you.

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.

(Valor, Andalusia)

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.

(Boules, France)

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.

In Valor you grew up to be a naughty little toddler using the draws in the kitchen as a ladder to get to the strawberries on top of the counter.

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.

When we came to take a look came in we saw:

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.

 
And you loved 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.

We moved to casa Melon.

We landed in that beautiful place: Cotijo Melon.

A 45-minute walk downhill from the little village of Bayarcal in Almeria.
When you would step outside you had an awesome view, you could see everything and no one could see you.

You could and would walk around naked unless the Sheppard and sheep came by, but their bells announced themselves timely.

And it was near your grandparents as the crow flies.

I have walked it quite a couple of times and maybe you remember how tired you were walking to the river down in the valley...

And then you were not even halfway. You preferred to be carried and so I did because those little legs were developing rapidly, but this landscape and these walks could be a bit much and okay I did enjoy you on my back as well.

We did a hell of a lot of exploring, the river the ruins, and the little streams.

How awesome is that growing up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by water, rocks, and food.

You learned a lot about what foods grew in the surrounding nature. Opening almonds with a rock, walnuts, picking our strawberries, grapes, oranges, or climbing the the tree with dad to pick sour cherries. That little piece of heaven provided us with so many delicious moments.

And within a year or two you became a little mountain goat yourself.

You developed an awesome balance inside and outside, you climbed every rock and every terras.

Your dad kept struggling, I loved being in nature and working the land but that did not pay the bills. From the middle of nowhere, it was hard to continue the takeaway, which meant that our freedom grew and our income dwindled.

I felt responsible and useless at the same time, no matter how much I enjoyed the surroundings. It made it hard to live in the moment, and that was something you noticed.

One day your mom even talked with you about finding another dad, because this one was too stressed too often. I can tell you that it hurt hearing that, but I get it.

With your mom's health having ups and downs, I felt it was all up0 to me, but without a driver's license and speaking the language, there was only so much I could do.

Overall I experienced it as a great time, probably the best time because what came next was a school for you and a real job for me. You already went to school while living on the Cortijo, but only when you felt like it.

Unfortunately when you hit 6 years, it became mandatory. You did not agree with that and kept asking whywhy you should have to go to school. I tried to explain it to you by saying: "Because the king said so."

Well, "the king is stupid" was your reply.

That was the end of an era, an awesome era. But when you live in the middle of nowhere and there is not enough money for a car you know it´s time to get a real job.

That real job took us to the city of Granada.

It was wonderful to be together with you and see you grow up for so many years, but now it was time to work full time for me and 6 hours of school a day for you.

As soon as you went to school and got friends, that is when you as a dad see the influence of the world on your kid. The world outside of our little bubble, that beautiful happy place we lived in for those first six years.

You came home with stories about fighting parents and kids being locked up, things I was sure came from your friends at school.

With the bad also came the good, no longer living in the middle of nowhere meant that your granddad (my father) was finally able to visit.

Both you and my dad are giving signals with fingers and I tried to look normal. Because now I had to be a real dad, a working dad, a dad that only had time with you in the evening and on the weekends.....and holidays.

That first school in Ogigares was no success, it was way too big compared to the school with 20 kids you were used to in Bayarcal. And the teacher must have been a real prick, you brought two action figures to class....he took them from you taped them behind him on the wall, and said you were not gonna get them back.

You must have felt so small in that big school, with that jerk teacher. So exposed with your favorite toys on his wall and the inability to protest as you were catching up on your Spanish.

But both problems were soon solved. You were now allowed to watch Spanish cartoons as much as you likedand within months your Spanish was better than your moms & dads combined.

We noticed that when we went for a drive and I played this song.

We were not allowed to play that song ever again, you really felt ashamed that we did.

And that teacher we sorted him out....well sort of.

You moved to the Alpujara with your mom and I remained working in Granada and coming over every weekend.

It was so weird not having you around every day, but you did much better in school over there, so it was for the greater good.

Well I guess that is the end of Part 1, I hope you enjoyed me looking back and  are looking forward to Part 2 

Next Chapter is published:

Letter To My Son Part 2