He Can't Come Back This Time

Please forgive the 'flaws' in this photo of my son, Tommy, when he was one year old.  We lost all in a house fire... thankfully, I had a suitcase of photos upstairs that survived the fire.

The firemen with their hoses of water, were trying unsuccessfully to save our home, our belongings.  The water damaged the photos... I don't care, I'm thankful to have what I have left... you don't hear me complain.

I still have a lock of 'strawberry-blonde' hair that was sealed in a bag, inside the suitcase... the same hair the sunshine shone down on, kissed... on a little boy playing in the white sand.

Tommy's first haircut came when he was exactly one year old.  In the mountains where we lived, that was the custom there.  He got his first haircut in November, 1970... he was born November 20, 1969.  My precious son, Tommy Mitchell Sidden.
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He Can't Come Back ... This Time
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee


The bright sunlight shone on the little boy's strawberry-blonde hair
As he sat in the white sand... not aware of being watched
Not caring if he was... he was in his own imaginary world
Where trucks and cars roared with life as he pushed them with his little hands

She stood there with a sweet smile on her face, her eyes filled with love
For her little son who played in the white sand in his little world
She prayed to God to keep him safe, let him grow up without feeling pain
As she'd grown up to know... please don't let my son ever know pain she prayed to God

Little did she know that not only would her little son grow up to know pain
The pain she'd known her young life... had only just begun
Thankfully, she'd didn't know because she may have given up before she started
If she'd known what was coming her way

I pray God my soul to keep, I pray for happiness, good health
I pray that you, God, will keep my son and I safe
Have everything we need to live our lives
Please don't let the bogeyman get us, keep us safe from all

The mother stood there watching her little son, tears filled her eyes
She wanted to gather him up in her arms, the love she felt for him
Was overwhelming, she wanted to protect him from the very life
She loved, embraced... but, knowing well that life isn't always what it seems to be

She tried never to let her son out of her sight... impossible for a mother to do
Life has ways of separating all of us for a few minutes, even for the longest of times
This mother never knew her son would go missing from her life for 3 years
When he did, she had no control... the person responsible never knew she'd set something in motion

She thought she was helping the young mother when she did what she felt best
The little boy disappeared, the young mother began to wander the world searching, wondering
Where is my little son, I can know no peace, no happiness until he is found
No one seemed to know, to want to tell her where her little boy went

No one can ever know the grief of a mother when her son goes missing
Nor can they possibly know the happiness of a grieving mother to find her child
Only to lose him again later in life, this time forever
To become a grieving mother for the rest of her life... he can't come back ... this time