text: I scroll through pictures I’ve backed up from my phone. I have thousands, but in every lineup there are pictures of my boys throughout my myriad of randomness. Every grouping they grow subtly, nearly invisibly to the normal eye. But I see it. I see the time between. I’m gone so much. They say parents never see their children actually grow, age, get bigger and smarter because they are with them nearly every day of their growing lives. I see my two boys grow every time I see them. They are three and five, almost four and six and I have been away from them for the majority of their lives. I watch them grow from a distance. I am more lucky than my father who did not have video chat and the technology of worldwide instant communication that we have today, but that’s a tiny grace in the life of an absent father. I get to see them age through pictures or a phone screen. Every time I interact with them is a joyous heartbreak. Every time I delve through my photo vault I am reminded of how much I love and miss them, how much of their lives I miss and memories of theirs I will never be a part of. Their first steps and words, a loving story passed to me by my best friend and love, my wife. They’ve hit the age where memory sticks, and I’m terrified of their memories without me. I hope they are happy, I know they are given so much love... but do they truly feel my love from a distance and through a screen? I remember my life growing up without my father present, and that put a huge gap in my heart that took me most of my life to figure out and fix who I am because of it. Am I doing that to my boys? Will they carry this hole for the majority of their lives? Will they perceive my absence as a loving sacrifice or will they see me as the father who was never there for their scrapes and problems? Another photo, another memory of a time I was there and the painful stab of reality that I am yet again viewing these from a distance. I try to pass on wisdom from afar. I try to bribe their love with boxes and mailed gifts from around the globe. One day I will be there, but they will be too old to sit on my lap, to cuddle with me the way a toddler can. That warm pure innocent embrace without specific memory. They are passing the sweet innocence of childhood into their cognitive years and I am never there to directly shape and sculpt their personalities. I try to lie to myself and believe that I do this for them, I do this to provide for them and give them a life of opportunity, meals that aren’t ramen and broth soup. College funds to give them the option of an education if they so choose that route. Money doesn’t buy happiness but it does provide for an easier start and an easier life. I try to believe that I am not there in order to provide that opportunity most children don’t have. I hope everyday that I’m not making excuses for my own mind, but I know the truth and know that there is a part of life that cannot be replaced with the provisions of an absent father. I think of them every day, I miss them every day, and I’m torn on the reciprocal. I want them to miss me, but I don’t want them to feel the pain of missing me. I want them to be amazing people and shape society for the better, but understand that in doing so, they will have been able to build that strong foundation without me. They will be great men, and I fear that I will not have been a part of that foundation.