It’s been a couple years since I attended my company’s
annual summer picnic. In 2012 I opted out because I was still a mess over A’s death.
Last year I had planned on going but fortuitously Dragon got sick that week.
This year Dragon and I went. Fortunately I had the nap excuse; by the time she woke up and we
got there, there was only an hour or so of obligatory niceties left.
The picnic is a time for the families of the all the staff
to gather. I have to admit it’s insightful to meet my coworkers’ and bosses’
spouses, children and significant others. There were some “big kids” [read:
school aged] and Dragon was entertained by their running and wrestling antics.
But she naturally migrated toward the only other toddler-sized person at the
picnic – my coworker’s son who was born 5 months after A. She pursued this little boy until his shyness
abated and they happily played together tossing a ball back and forth. He was
very sweet to her. Toward the end of the picnic all of the coolers had been
emptied and Dragon made a beeline to the giant piles of dumped ice cubes and
water. The next thing I know she’s got a dirt-covered ice cube in her mouth and
the little boy comes running up saying, “No! Don’t eat that. Yucky! No!” and
swats it out of her hand.
For the most part I was able to swallow the lump in my
throat and make small talk with the little boy’s mom and dad. But that ice cube
encounter was a dagger to my soul. It was such a kind, brotherly gesture that I
just about lost it right then and there.
Our neighbors and good friends also have a son who is
roughly A’s age (he was born 4 months before A). We see them often and while
his behavior toward Dragon can be doting, he is, for the most part, pretty mean
to her. He hates to share, snatches things away from her, hoards toys and has
pushed her more times than I can count. Hopefully this is just a phase that
he’ll outgrow as he learns better social skills, but I also recognize it as
natural 3-year-old behavior.
I try to avoid children who are A’s age (he’d be three in October)
and I try even harder to avoid situations where children who are A’s age get to
play with Dragon. It is a mirror to the life we ought to have. It is a glimpse
into what it might be like to watch my two children interact, both the good and
the bad. I am not deluded to think that if A were alive our lives would be rosy
and my kids would get along 100% of the time Flanders style. When I
fantasize about how things would be with a living A, I can clearly see a
possessive older brother and a tantruming little sister; a big brother who
takes advantage of his age and size to trick her out of snacks or other coveted
things.
It also makes me wonder how different Dragon would be with
the influence of her elder sibling instead of the attention-filled daydream of
her current existence. My friend Julie sums it up well when she recently wrote,
“Bode’s personality is in part shaped by being the only living child in our
home, by our grief and paranoia about his safety, by our desperate love.
He would certainly not be the same boy if his older brother, 17 months his
senior, was growing up alongside of him.” Click here to see her entire post.
Ever since she could register facial expressions, it’s been
obvious that Dragon loves to be around other children. She especially loves to
be with ‘big kids’ and will watch, enthralled, as they ride scooters, play
ball, jump waves or simply run amok. I’ll never know what the dynamic between my
two children would have been, but I know that they’re both cheated by not
having each other.
