I was sitting on the bench on the playground while my son was talking to his friends. Something was up, I didn’t really know what. I hear his friend say “has anyone ever felt the way I’m feeling?” he says this with the drama that only 7 year old boy can. So what do I do…move closer. I need to hear this…I get a little giggle as they talk about feelings, and someone mentions death. His grandpa died. My son matter of factly says “my mom had a baby named David, he died before I was born.” I gasped. I wasn’t expecting that. I hear the other little boy say “that means you have a brother” I feel a punch in the gut. He simply says “well, he was born before me, I never knew him” the conversation moves on, and someone says how they had a friend named David die. My boy goes back to “that was my moms baby’s name, David. I never knew anyone named David before”. All of this so matter of factly. All of this was said between a few boys just trying to understand death. The conversation went on to someone saying “your an atheist?” my son says “NO an ANGEL”. Then like most seven year old boy conversations it went to bombing houses and how to stop, drop and roll if you catch on fire.
On are walk home I say nothing about his private conversation with his friends. We just walked and talked about meaningless stuff like most days. He didn’t mention it, and I didn’t want to let him know I was being nosey. It still makes me smile, and makes me sad. Makes me smile because my son is comfortable enough with sharing such personal information. It makes me smile, because none of those boys blew it off, or acted strangely. They all just nodded, then recognized, that my son did have a brother. Made me sad because, he does have a brother that he will never know.
