I’ll go so long without blogging I almost start to think I might be past it. Like I might have reached the point where I can live with the loss of my child without constantly writing about it. Like that’s an achievement. Look, he’s doing so well with the death of his child that he doesn’t need to write about it any more. There’s no goal in that that’s worth striving for, since you start with the point that your child is dead. Either you write about it or you don’t. I guess I’m still writing about it.
And it’s true we had an exceptionally trying parenting day this weekend with the living children, and there again you see the problem: That I can divide my children into the living and the dead. It’s become such a normal thing for me I have to remind myself that this is not how the average parent does it. You might have the good children and the bad children. Or the children who live at home and the children who live with their father. But the living and the dead is a more extreme separation.
So, we had our bad day. And then I dreamt I was hanging out with two of my nieces. They are actually two nieces I’ve never met (because of the size of my family and the fact that I live overseas, there are large chunks of my direct family I’ve never met) and we were in a mall or something and they asked me why I decided to become a father. And I said “because I thought it would be fun.” Then I paused and said “Of course, that was before I realized one of my children could die.” Then my nieces started crying. Then I started crying.
The next day I was walking Murphy and a Peter Gabriel song I don’t know particularly well came on. And then I was crying in the middle of the path, half-hoping that someone I knew would stumble upon us, just so I could shout to the world: “Look. I do cry about him, OK?”
And I thought I was doing so well.
It happened again the next day. Same dog. Different song. A kid biked by and looked at me funny. I didn’t exactly shout at him, but I know I audibly said “You’re alive at least.”
I didn’t have a lot of time to blog after my uncle’s funeral. It was a busy week beforehand and then I got sick the week after (though, in hindsight, I think it might have just been a spectacular case of allergies). And then I had a crazy busy week at work. But I did know that I wanted to talk about that week before my uncle’s funeral, while I was in Dusseldorf.
The original plan had been to get into Dusseldorf around 4 p.m. Then I would have had some time to get myself together before the team met for our big dinner. Except, something went wrong on the tracks, and my four-hour train ride to Dusseldorf turned into an eight-hour one, so we showed up an hour after dinner started and, instead of sitting with people from my team, whom I was hoping to get to know better, I ended up with the CEO and some people from marketing, who were all perfectly lovely.
And we talked. And we mentioned if we’d ever been to Dusseldorf and how long we’d been with the company. And then the woman across from me asked me how many children I had, and I guess because of the nightmarish train ride and the fact that my wine glass kept getting refilled, I hadn’t even prepped myself for the question, like I usually do when meeting new people. And before I thought about it, I had answered that my children were 14 and 12 and that the youngest one was no longer with us. When prompted, I confirmed that I meant “dead.”
She told me that was a very nice way to say it, which I guess it was. And then we talked a little bit about Colin’s death and, from where I stood, it didn’t feel awkward. She said she felt bad and it was clear the news bummed her out, but she didn’t treat me like a leper and I didn’t break down into sobs. And then maybe it was the wine, but I told at least three other people that night, several of whom being people whose role at the company I only barely understand.
I felt like I had made a breakthrough. I’d just start cold introducing myself that way. At the very least it felt better than not talking about it and worrying about when it might slip out.
But it’s not a cure. There’s too many little shards of him in my heart and I can’t quite function the way I used to. Last week, I saw a poster for a demonstration against pediatric cancer (I guess, thinking about it, it’s probably demanding more resources to treat pediatric cancer), with a picture of an adorable little boy, probably about 4 years old, and how he never got to graduate, etc, because he died of cancer. I looked at the picture and all I could think was how I wish it was Colin on the poster, because then at least more people would know his name.
I’m going for a walk with Murphy after I post this. We’ll see how it goes.
❤️