Wonder 56

When it hits, it hits. Tia Berry, Mãe, and then Pai all passed on within a week of each other. I’ve seen that happen with patients before: all the elders in a generation pass within the same time period.

What’s left for the kids who are left behind?

For that’s how I feel, though I’m an adult and father myself: I feel like an abandoned kid.

If it weren’t for Tanner, I’d be alone in the world, no matter how many friends I have.

I’ve been trying to save my grieving for after Tanner’s gone to school.

When he’s home, I’m focused on him.

He’s been so sweet.

He told me the other day that we had something in common, only backwards.

“I started out an orphan, and now I got a family. You started out with a family, and now you’re an orphan. Same but different.”

“But not entirely the same,” I told him, “for I’ve still got a family. Same one you’ve got.”

“Yeah,” he said, and he smiled.

“It feels like peanut butter and jelly when you got a family, right, Dad?” He’d always called me Chaz before. I had to step into the kitchen for a moment to hold onto the counter, breathe, and let go of a few tears.

I came back to the living room with a cup of coffee, and I sat on the floor next to the drawing table. I leaned against the wall, hitched my knees up, and watched him work.

We could hear his crayon scratching on the paper, and he was humming a little tune.

“For sure this is a picture of a monster,” he said. “Think it’s scary? It’s scary. But it’s not scary like something that will eat you. It’s scary like something that you think you better not look at, or else, you know. Stone. You’re turned to stone.”

“Did you hear about Medusa and Perseus in school, Tanner?”

“Naw,” he replied. “Oh, I know all about Medusa. But this ain’t her. This is her sister Megaluna. She only comes to orphans. When it’s all dark, and then you think you better not look, then she comes. And orphan hearts go stony. But there’s a trick. You look anyway. Then she’s not scary, you’re heart stays soft, and when she goes away, there’s no monster anymore.”

After Tanner left for school, I found myself staring down my own Megaluna. It was too late. My heart was solid stone. I couldn’t even cry, and all I felt was a block inside where all my feelings should be rushing through me. I had a long day ahead while my boy was at school to try to find some way to slew this monster grief.

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