"I want to love you but I don't know how"

How is a child supposed to love if he has never been taught how to properly love in the first place? How does one love if they never received the love they deserve? 

Wasn't that my job? Is that not why I am still here? Am I not the one who is supposed to show him how to feel? 

So many nights I cried over him, trying to convince myself that he would be okay without me. So many nights I stayed up wondering if I could get away with taking him somewhere else, far, far away, where he could finally be happy. 

I worked for him. I worked to keep him around. I worked to build his trust. 

And in an instant, I lost it all.

All the nights we stayed up laughing because he threw popcorn up into the air and missed catching it in his mouth; all the evenings we sat in our grandmother's floor playing pokemon cards until I had to leave; all the days that I chased him around the house with a giant witch hat on my head, letting out evil laughs to let him know that I was coming to tickle him... 

All of that disappeared so quickly. 

It disappeared because of me.

And I don't know how to get it back.