on the benefits of a lego neptune sub and other matters of life and death
HEY YOU GUYS.
Sometimes I'm sad about Liam. But I really wish we could go to Thomas and Oliver's house because I could bring my knights and we could play knights cause they have A REALLY COOL CASTLE. And I can yell up to the sky like this:
HAAAAAAAAAAA!
...to Liam. So he can hear. Can we get him down again? WAIT. I know how. I will go to Atlantis in my LEGO NEPTUNE SUB and I will unlock the secret key and then I will travel up into the sky and I will bring him back down again. After I fight the giant squid. I will bring him back here after I get the giant squid with my laser. I will bring Liam TO THE EARTH. So I can talk to him. Okay. Good.
I shrink from 'dead' because death is not the extent of my son. It's too small a word. It’s just something that happened to him. And so I don't tend to pass it on, trying instead, feebly, to plant seeds that open possibilities rather than closing them. It’s not that Evan doesn’t know that Liam died. He does. But 'he died' is not an answer. 'He died' is only more questions.
+++
On sad days I've broached our history, afraid of what I might incite. I've feared indulging my grief at his expense. And so I've only asked this twice in as many years, and in a strange, hesitant mumble.
Do you remember Liam?
No.
You had another brother.
I'm hungry.
He was only two. The NICU was averse to tasmanian devils and steam engines. And so we always said when he's ready which is parental code for I just don't know how to go there yet. And so it was randomly, through bedtime gloom, Ben already purring softly in sleep, when Evan proposed the Atlantis route, and when we settled on our answer.
Where did he go?
Look up.
Not for gates strung with righteous pearls, but for one of nature's most plentiful and accessible sights. Stars, sapphire blue, wind that drags fingers through trees. Clouds of February, plain and grey.
Are clouds hard? How can he walk around up there?
I don't know. How do you think?
He must be really light.
He is a river and the eel that slips through it. He is an eagle and a mouse. He is not afraid. He is united, all together, safe. He is not in that plastic box anymore. He is elsewhere, and nowhere, and everywhere.
There's all that, or there's just
Look up.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Reader Comments (51)
and "Look up."
perfect.
Oh and I love the image of Evan with his lego helpmates fighting a giant squid. Perfect.
how perfect a description.
(and remind me to show Ben my squid. :D )
I am. Thanks to this. What a beautiful reminder.
We are so close to them even yet, aren't we? Death is such a big thing, but not so big as to appear insurmountable if you look at it in the right light.
Everything I know about Liam (which isn't a great deal, except you so eloquently explain your understanding of where and what he is now, and that's enough for me) says that his death is not the extent of who he is. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of pre-determinism, but whatever it was that Liam was meant for; you've embraced it, even in the face of incredible sadness and general life terribleness. You blow my mind.
And I'm not worried about Evan and Ben knowing about him. They'll know. I'm sure that as they grow up, Liam will show himself to them in all sorts of funny, cheeky brother ways. :)
It's a pleasure to read what you write, whatever it's about.
I remember him, Kate. Through you and your beautiful words and this place, I remember him often. And you. Even when I don't visit here on a regular basis. That's how profound all of it is that you've told.
Love to you.
Thank you, Kate.
oh, my heart. it hurts reading this, but then it doesn't.
lucky boy(s) to have this mama.
My mother and all of her siblings have the same picture of a woman hanging on the wall in either their family room or spare bedroom. It is a painting, the young woman is dressed in formal, old fashioned clothing. She is holding a notebook, and a handkerchief.
This young woman is Ga.
Ga was my grandfather's grandmother. Her husband had shell shock after WWI, eventually left her, went to the states, and got involved in family scandals and was thus forgotten by the family. Left alone with her children, Ga served as a maid and a laundress, doing lowly tasks to try and keep up the standard of living to which she had been accustomed. She didn't want her own children to grow up to be maids, when they came from a wealthy background.
It worked. Both her daughters married well and lived the high life. One never had children at all. The other had a son that she quickly lost interest in. She sent him away to school, and on holidays he mostly lived with Ga. Ga raised him more than his mother ever did.
That son was my grandfather. He grew into a thoughtful and dreamy Anglican reverend, and filled his empty family with seven children.
Now all of these kids have a picture of Ga in their house.
I know who Ga is. I remember her and honour her as part of my family. If someone asks who that is in the picture, I say fondly, "Oh, that's Ga..."
Her great, great granddaughter whom she certainly never met, remembers her with love.
Liam will be the same in your family. The baby everyone loves and remembers, but never knew. Keep his picture where your sons can see and ask questions, and they will grow up to the story of him, and pass him on to their children, and he will always be loved and remembered.
I go through this some with my kids, too, even though they were much older when their brother transitioned. The middle child, the 12 year old, told me the other day that he doesn't think he remembers Ward that much. It catches my heart, and I just calmly, calmly tell him that that's okay to feel like that, we have pictures we can look at, and that I have forgotten some details, too.
But, yes, part of this strange gift they gave us when they had this thing happen to them is that now death is an intimate part of our lives. We have their pictures, we talk about it, and the other kids will grow up knowing that (hopefully) this process doesn't change who you are or minimize you: it's just something that happens.
And I love Evan's submarine plan, on so many levels. What a sweetheart.
God bless you and your family and Liam.
i'd still holding on to hope that evan's neptune sub and the whole atlantis idea. sounds downright perfect to me.
all i can echo is what you said: mamalove.
I struggle with what to call him. Their big brother? Doesn't sound right as they, immediately, upon their birth, were already bigger (literally; Gabe was only 5'6oz.) than he was.
"Look up."
Death is a small word, something that happened to him. Not an answer, but more questions. All right on, and distillations of our truths.
love ya much, and lifting my chin to look up. xoxo
She smiled at me and said so simply, "She's up high..."
That's all I needed to know that she understood.
They know more than we do, I think.
Your boys, all of them, are lucky to have you.
you are a master with the words kate. and an amazing mama to your boys.
But I need to let you know that your writing, your sharing the story of Liam - the strange symbiotic nature of having to let him go and growing a new space in your heart... it resonates in me like a gong, and is healing me, even though the loss I have experienced is a totally different one. Thank you for sharing these parts of yourself with us strangers. It is an amazing gift, in more than one sense.
Well thanks for another great post Kate. I read often and although it's been almost three years since Mercer's death I still come here and to Glow-thanks for keeping these places relevant even after this much time.
We talked a minute about the universality of grief and I told you that I thought you should get a book deal for the writing of those posts. (Pirates are cool too, though, you know.) I got up to leave early and it's crossed my mind several times to email you and to tell you that I wished I would've stayed at the table and followed that conversation for a while longer. It's my one regret from that weekend.
Posts like this are what cut across the lines, I think. Like when the watercolor hits a wet spot on the page and rushes to blend, bleeds and mingles.
You are just the very best.
You're all so kind. xo
Look up.
-- That is brilliant. Beautiful post, Kate.