How do you tell your son that his father has died?
Because of the circumstances when I heard the news a few months ago, I had to wait. Theo’s sleep cycle had reached the point of sleeping all day, up all night. He was asleep when I arrived home from a lunch out with my sister Adriene, having learned the news by phone while I was with her.
When someone close to you dies, it feels like an emergency, like family and friends should be rushing to your side with sirens blaring. It was a Monday afternoon; most people were at work or not an easy distance away. I was the only one in the house except for Theo sleeping in his room, just as I’d so often been alone at home before Theo was born, my husband sleeping odd hours because of his chronic pain and fatigue as a polio survivor.
“Is someone dead, or dying?”
News of the death of a loved one carves a hole in time: Stop. Time to grieve. I cried. I let people know, mostly by email—coworkers, family, and close friends. The news had come from Theo’s dad’s side of the family, so I knew the same news was going out both on this side of the Atlantic and across it.
Theo woke up late in the evening, almost the time I go to bed. I wasn’t about to give him the news then and leave him alone through the night while I slept. So the next morning, I went up to him at the computer and said. “Theo, I have something sad to tell you.”
“What is it?” he asked, half combatively. “Is someone dead, or dying?”
I waited until he looked away from the computer and made eye contact. I told him his father had died, using his first name.
“He died?” Theo repeated.
I told him what I knew, little by little. We moved into the living room to sit together on the couch. Theo passed through different stages of realization right before my eyes. He was angry with himself and regretful for not having visited his dad more, especially lately. Theo was upset with his dad, too, for making it difficult for Theo to want to visit him. He cried a little, not sobbing but with tears falling down his cheeks.
I told him how I’d found out and who I shared the news with.
“Grandpa doesn’t know yet,” I said.
“I want to tell him,” Theo said right away. He explained it should not be during a Zoom meeting or a phone call; he wanted to share the news in person. He was also clear that he didn’t want to go until the next day. I was impressed with his self-awareness, ability to talk about his feelings, and taking on the difficult task of telling my father, who had loved Theo’s dad.
“I guess I need to think about the future now.”
On one of those first days, Theo said, “I feel like my head is going around in circles.”
“I know, Theo, so does mine.”
Memories surged up for both of us, good ones and not so good. Theo said that his dad was disappointed with him. “He was so depressed, Theo,” I said, which Theo knew.
“I guess I need to think about the future now,” he said.
“Don’t live in an unbalancing act.”
In the first week of January, Theo made it clear that he was tired of seeing me so “serious” and “sad.” I said I understood but that it was a sad time. We would sometimes feel like crying and that was okay.
He said: “Don’t live in an unbalancing act, like falling off a bridge.” I reflected that before the sad news I’d felt I was doing an okay job of balancing daily tasks and projects, and yes, since then it felt like things had become unbalanced. New projects, legal and financial in nature, crowded in while earlier projects loomed as urgent as ever.
Balancing priorities and working on them is going to be tricky, but I have hope. And glimpses of Theo’s inner clarity and intention gives me hope, too. L’espoir fait vivre.
Annette, This is so touching and beautifully written. Sending you and Theo love, Mary