Monsters

Maybe, Probably, Hopefully

Photo by Pacifica Goddard

August, 2022 - Zephyr is 10 months old

When my 4-year-old son Rio comes home from nursery today, I notice he is wearing a shirt he has never worn before.

“I like your new shirt!” I say. “I love all the animals. It’s so cool.”

“Yes, I really like it,” he says. “But I won’t be using it for long.”

I assume he must be referring to how he’s about to start primary school and, like most children in the UK, will be wearing a uniform.

“Why is that?”

“Because I am going to die soon. Everyone dies,” he says.

I swallow a laugh. He is serious. He looks at me with wide, calm eyes. It is up to me to clear this up, but he is both so right and wrong that I don’t know how I will untangle it for him.

“Yes… everybody dies, but most people die when they are old,” I say. “You aren’t going to die soon. You probably won’t die for a really long time.”

Probably.

I have a hard time telling him things definitively because I don’t know the future any more than he does, and I feel like a fraud if I pretend I DO know and can promise him longevity. Or anything else.

Perhaps other parents don’t feel these qualms and promise what needs to be promised to stave off their children’s fears. A little white lie here and there to nip worry in the bud. Something that can be cleared up later when a child’s cognition is more advanced, and nuance is easier to achieve.

But I can’t bring myself to tell him, “You won’t die until you are old.” I always have to add my probablys, my qualifiers.

So maybe his concerns about death are all my fault. Maybe he would feel safer if I could promise him that nothing bad was ever going to happen and that we were all going to die a long, long, long time from now.

Maybe.

Then he asks me, “Will I die today?”

I feel ok hedging my bets on this one. “No honey, you are not going to die today. You don’t need to worry. Are you worrying about it?” What a dumb question.

We have tried to explain everything about Zephyr’s disease to Rio in an honest but careful way. I feel that children are so perceptive that if you hide things from them or don’t explain them enough, they will probably become more anxious or scared because of what is hinted at but not discussed.

Probably.

But last night my husband David told me that Rio had asked him if tumors ever kill people. David had to explain that sometimes they do because he doesn’t feel right lying to our kid either. We both try to find ways of telling the truth that hopefully won’t be too scary or damaging.

Hopefully.

But it’s so hard to choose words as a parent. You think that when the moment comes to explain something difficult, you will know what to say, but it always feels like skydiving, a great trusting leap into the unknown as the words tumble out.

With Zephyr’s cancer journey, things have moved so quickly there hasn’t been time to choose the words carefully or to think things through. I fear I have become clumsy. I fear I haven’t taken the right approach to lead him through all of this. I fear what my little mistakes may cost him.

The truth is that the last year has been scary, no matter how I explain it. Not only did Rio have to adjust to having a new sibling, but then that new baby kept disappearing to the hospital, occasionally without warning; Rio would wake up some mornings and both his mother and brother were just… gone.

At 3 1/2 years of age Rio went from never having been separated from me, to having to spend days at a time without me. And then when all the dangerous infections started, those days sometimes became weeks. And David and I have been sad and afraid too, and he could not have failed to notice. Hopefully, being able to talk about it and ask questions and hear our honest responses has helped him, not made it worse.

Hopefully.

But tonight, at bedtime, he begs me not to leave. He tells me he doesn’t want to go to sleep alone. He clutches at me, and I can feel his little body vibrating.

He tells me that it is too light in the room for him to sleep. I ask him if he wants me to close the door. He yells no. He wants to sleep away from the light but cannot feel at ease in the dark.

“Are you feeling scared of something?”

He nods. “Scary things can come out of the dark.”

“Like what?”

“Monsters.”

“There are no monsters in this house,” I say. “The dark in this house is cozy and happy and perfect for sleeping. Are you still afraid?”

He nods.

“What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know…”

“Are you afraid for the baby?”

Another nod.

“Are you afraid because he’s been sick? It can be scary sometimes when people get sick.”

He nods again.

Rio’s monsters do not sit in the closet or under the bed. The monsters he worries about are sickness, tumors, cancer, hospitals, infections, and death.

“Are you…afraid the baby is going to die?”

“Yes, mama.”

At four years old, Rio is already familiar with the tragic and beautiful dance that binds love and fear and loss.

Oh, my sweet child, these should not be your worries. This is not fair. I don’t know how to protect you from this. To make you feel safe. I have tried so hard to keep you safe. To keep both of you safe. But I feel inadequate. I wonder what you will remember about all this later on. I worry you will feel this fear in your body and be haunted by it for a long time.

I pull him close to me and wrap my arms around him. I whisper in his ear, “The baby is so healthy. He is so happy. We are fighting the tumor. The medicine will help. The doctors and nurses are always taking good care of him. He will get better. Everything is going to be fine. Your baby will be fine. Your baby will be wonderful.” I am telling him and telling myself. “He will keep getting bigger and stronger and better and better. He will be so healthy. Everything will be ok. I promise. I promise.”

I can say this honestly to him, without qualifiers, because I believe it. I have to believe it.

And while I am saying these words, I feel his body loosen, his breathing slow, as he finally trusts sleep enough to let it curl up with him in the darkness.

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