My six-year-old nephew Teddy asked me to play chess at Thanksgiving. Memories of Caleb flooded back. He was about this age when he started asking. Teddy was not yet born when Caleb died. I sat across from someone old enough to understand the rules and develop strategy, but who never shared a single moment with my son.
Teddy saw my phone. Caleb and Madi are always on my background, together.
“Who is that? Is he an adult? I have never seen him.”
“My son. He died.”
The look on Teddy’s face almost broke me. True compassion from a child. He may have known and forgotten in the moment. No matter. He is six and does more than most people. Not afraid to sit quietly and think through a game of chess, and not afraid to open up, ask questions, offer support the best way he knows how.
I love that I can talk about Caleb when I spend Thanksgiving with my sister-in-law. She and her incredibly large family of ten children have sympathy through other losses. Some remember Caleb fondly. Others do not remember him at all.
The best gift anyone can give is talking about my kids and letting me talk about them. It is extra special when it is about Caleb because everyone will talk about Madi. No one shrinks back or cringes when I mention her. Most six-year-olds offer support regardless of the emotional cost. Most adults have already calculated theirs.
“Their memory is sustained through speaking about them and our feelings about their death. Deny this and you deny their life. Deny their life and you have no place in ours… Were we to act out our true feelings, we would be impossible to be with. We resent having to act normal, yet we dare not do otherwise.”
The Ugly Shoes Club
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