FOR CHRISTMAS I WANT MY BABY BOY BACK

"Why don't you kiss me anymore, son?" asked my father with a resigned sadness in his face.

"Dad!" I stammered. "Dad!"

Didn't he understand? I was 15. I was too old to be kissing my father. He looked at me with his sympathetic demeanor. I didn't have to explain. He understood. He always understood. He was a man of great patience and discipline.

As I passed through adolescence into adulthood, I never forgot to kiss him on the cheek and hug him if we had been separated for any period of time. I felt more like an Italian in my expression of love than I did an Irishman. What I would give to kiss and hug him now, but he has departed for parts.

I have three sons. I coached for many years and I know something about boys. A Jewish friend of mine with all the knowledge of the patriarchs has four sons.

"They are beautiful when they are children, but then they grow up," he told me with a wistfulness in his voice.

My youngest is 20. He, like my other sons, has been affectionate with me. Since he is my baby, he occupies a special place in my heart.

For the record, all my sons occupy a special place in my heart. My mother had eight children, but she had the gift of making each feel like an only child. I inherited that talent from her.

"Donde esta mi hijo bonito?" I would call when I went to collect him at the daycare. He would come bounding to me as children do when they see the parents they love.

Rather than hooking up with the buddies--who chided me for being too old to be raising a child--for countless Happy Hours, I would spend my afternoons teaching him everything from catching a football to riding a bike. It was pure joy.

I have never been able to satisfy my desire for him because from the knowledge gained experiencing the passing of time via my older sons, I literally visualize the sand pouring like Niagara Falls through an hour glass. In three days I will be 74. Soon I will be dead. Time is an incomprehensible phenomenon for me.

Meanwhile, he is studying at Texas State as well as working at two bars in Austin. He is making his way and I'm proud of him, but he is also a young buck and likes to howl at the moon until the sun replaces it the next day in the sky.

There are photos of him throughout the house that capture the innocence I worshipped. Regrettably, that little boy is gone, gone forever.

We have moments at a restaurant eating wings and watching a game when he will return to his former self and sling his arm around my shoulder, but those intimate exchanges are few and far between.

This Christmas I will have all three boys. There will be one day that we will spend together at a favorite establishment. We will eat well and drink well and our spirits will be high.

They appreciate their old man. For all the bad that I have done in my life--not enough to spend eternity in hell, I hope--I will go to my grave with the satisfaction that I have been a good father.

But I can't escape my melancholic nostalgia. Since I don't believe in Santa Claus anymore, I can't count on ol' St. Nick bringing back my baby. When you live a long life, you die a slow death.