The Missing Frame

At the weekend I was on what might be my last camping trip without a child.

I don’t know what sort of coincidence this is. I’ve been camping dozens of times; I had never come across it before.

Two separate cars arrived, at two different times. The two dads scouted the site first and decided where to pitch camp. Then the car doors opened and their sons got out.

The first boy to arrive was exploring the pond and the other tents on his own, from near and from far. The second boy was luckier. The moment he got out of the car, he saw the first one.

At first nobody made contact with anybody.

The boys had something to eat and cleared up the dishes. Their chat with their dads never stopped. Although calling it a chat wouldn’t be right; it was raining questions.

We couldn’t quite hear the sentences, but it was clear where the questions were heading. Fingers, glances and body language all kept turning towards where the other boy was.

One was seven or eight, the other ten or eleven. They knew that moment was coming as surely as they knew their own names.

They found an excuse to get closer. First they came within the famous English small talk distance. When one of the dads threw in a remark and opened things up, the boys started talking. The dads were at least as pleased as they were.

Over on our side, the barbecue bustle carried on, along with the excitement of that rare thing, a men-only camping trip, the excessive drinking that came with it, and the non-stop eating. Meanwhile I was watching what was going on.

If they had been brothers, we probably wouldn’t have had a moment’s peace from their fighting and their noise. But these two were just laughing and chatting, as if making the most of that short moment.

While they were playing with a light-up frisbee, the excitement of the seven-or-eight-year-old was unbelievable. He was shouting “This is sick!” in a Scottish accent.

Of course the question “Where are their mums?” crossed our minds too. The human mind, especially when it has no information at all, is far too keen to come up with bad scenarios.

Still, their happiness is the reason I wanted to share the photo below in this post.

I was dreaming of that day too. Camping with Deniz, exploring the place, throwing a light-up frisbee in the dark…

But in that moment I noticed something else.

However romantic the father-and-son idea may be, with no mother in that frame everything looked a little bittersweet, a little incomplete.

Maybe Elvin being home alone at the time made me more open to it. Maybe I was just in an emotional mood. But whichever way I looked at it, something was missing from that photo.

This doesn’t mean a mother has to be everywhere at every moment. It’s more about me realising that, in my dream of a family, I don’t want the father-and-son adventure to turn into a separate world, apart from Elvin.

Of course Deniz and I will go camping.

But in the story we are building as a family, I don’t want anyone to be left outside.

Hey Deniz, let’s have a look around, mate!