I Met My Son When He Was 2 — And I May Never See Him Again

The only thing more life-altering than discovering and raising my child was losing him

Damian Delune
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Photo by Szilvia Basso on Unsplash

I’m not particularly religious, but I believe in generational curses. I’m convinced they’re the cause of issues that course through the paternal lineage of my family tree — everything from addiction to poverty to absent or abusive parenting. I wasn’t cognizant of this growing up; I just knew I had a screwed-up childhood. But things came into focus when I had a child of my own.

My son (I’ll refer to him as “C”) came into my life unexpectedly as many children do. But this was more than just an unplanned pregnancy; I wasn’t even aware of C’s existence until he was just over two years old. I stupidly had a one-night stand with his mother, a woman I’ve known most of my life. I’ll spare the details and excuses I used in an attempt to convince myself (and my wife) as to why it happened. The cold, hard truth is I messed up, and there’s no excuse for it. And the universe came knocking on my door in the form of a miniature version of myself almost three years after my one night of idiocy.

C’s mother was dating a woman when we hooked up, and she had no desire to break up her relationship with her girlfriend. Looking back, I believe she tried to get pregnant so…

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Damian Delune
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Writer for

Incarcerated writer sharing real stories about life on the inside, through my wife, Demeter Delune (editor, publisher, promoter, responder)