Empty house

A full day after sending Emma and Noah off on what would feel like a normal summer camp – except it’s run by the hospice and for children who have either lost siblings or are living with siblings with long-term special needs – it seemed like a good time to write this entry that has been knocking around in my head for a long time, looking for a point when it would be good to write it.

I think one of the biggest trials we face as parents after Colin’s loss is making sure that the other two turn out OK. And it’s so hard to gauge how they’re doing. They seem OK. So, does that mean they’re good at rolling with the punches? That they should be acting more upset and their relative normalcy is in itself a sign we should worry? Two years ago, while we were in the hospice watching Colin die, I would have assumed they’d be emotional messes after his death. As it is, I can count on one hand the times either of them has had a meltdown about it.

At times, it veers into dark comedy. A scene from Emma’s first week in her new high school last year. We opted to send her to a private Catholic school, so it’s a bit of a hike from our house and she doesn’t know a soul at this school. There might be some kids who came over together from the Catholic elementary school, but, in general, this new group of kids is a group of strangers.

Now, Christina had warned the school’s administration about Colin’s death when we enrolled Emma, but the head office never bothered to tell her homeroom teachers. So, like, on day two of school, the kids were assigned to write up a little introduction to present to the class. Emma was, like, the second kid to go, and led straight out the door with the death of her little brother.

This is the moment when I wonder if I’m damaged goods, because I see this scene and it feels like the darkest, dark comedy I can imagine. The poor teachers have not been prepared for it at all. There must have been about 20 kids sitting there, looking at their notes, thinking “Um, can I not be called on next? Because I do not feel good about talking about my Star Wars collection after THAT.” From what we’ve been told, the rest of the class rose to the challenge and quickly gave Emma a lot of support. So, that’s great. But what interests me about it is how this has just become such a simple fact to the kids’ day-to-day existence. No lead-up. No warming up to the topic. Just ‘my brother’s dead and that’s who I am.’ This is reality to them; everyone else has to figure it out.

I suppose I’m a little jealous about how black and white it is for them. During a medical checkup two weeks ago, the question of “how many children” came up and I must have hemmed and hawed through the answer for two minutes. Friday I went to the flower shop to get a bouquet for Christina’s birthday and the sales lady asked how old my kids were. When I said 11 and 13, I could see the surprise in her eyes, because I never took Emma and Noah there. I was always there with Colin, and he’d only be 7. So, I had to explain that and, even though this was the easiest ‘My son is dead’ reveal I’ve had in an age, it was still awkward.

None of that for Emma and Noah. It’s not as if they’re in denial. They’re just so matter of fact about it. As we left their grandparents’ on Thursday, Noah said he would wave like Colin, which involves only bending the top two knuckles of each finger, no wrist movement whatsoever. And it’s great that he has this memory of his brother, but it always takes me by surprise that he doesn’t feel this need to warn us that “I’m going to bring up a memory of Colin now, so brace yourself.” And why should he? He knows his brother is dead, but he’s still part of his life. I notice, when the kids talk about Colin, it’s always in the present tense. If we find one of his toys, it’s always “Oh, that is Colin’s,” never “Oh, that was Colin’s”

A while back, after we got our Switch, and when they were obsessed with this Mario racing game, I noticed that they had created a new avatar. Looking more closely, I realized it was named Colin. I asked and, indeed, they had created a Colin avatar with which they race. So, on some level, their dead brother is living, digitally, racing against Mario and Wario in a game that makes my thumbs hurt if I play it for more than one round. Yes, I fought back some questions about whether they thought this was a good idea and whether that was the best way to remember their brother when I noticed it, but mostly, it felt good to have him here on some level.