The Death of My Child

Children dying has been on my mind a lot this summer. I watched Hamnet twice and read the book. I watched Manchester By the Sea and cried. My oldest child is technically still alive but I can tell with you great certainty that she is, in fact, completely dead.

In Stand By Me, Denny (John Cusack) is dead. Sometimes Gordon (the younger brother) goes to Denny’s room, stands in the doorway, and stares numbly at his dead brother’s college pennants and Yankees cap. Sometimes I lumber up to the third floor, stand in the doorway, and stare numbly at my dead daughter’s Stanley water bottle and pink hairbrush. The bed is perfectly made, there’s nothing on the desk by the wall or the chair in the corner, and the closets are nearly empty. There’s only a big purple rug which I now realize is much bigger than I thought because it’s not covered by life: hoodies, shoes, bras, backpacks, computer chargers, Fritos wrappers, Sephora lotions, and Wilson racquets. The room is neat and clean and tidy and filled by a ghost.

There are two white tennis grips in a silver bowl by the stove. They’re hers but she’s not around to use them. The family used to play H-O-R-S-E on the sport court most nights. I can’t remember the last time I was up there. The dinner table has an empty seat. No one plays ping pong anymore. There are fewer dishes to do. I don’t take the car keys out of my backpack when I get home because she won’t be needing the car any time soon because she doesn’t live with us because she’s dead.

Just a few short months ago, we used to walk out the back door together at 7:12am. She’d toss her heavy black backpack in the backseat, slam all the doors, throw herself down in the passenger seat, and get poppy seeds all over her clothes and cream cheese all over her fingertips as she scarfed down a toasted everything bagel that mommy made for her. We’d go left out of the garage and she’d grade my U-turn on Ashland and Byron. Noah Kahan would come on the radio for the thousandth time, I’d make the family joke that never gets old (“You know this song?”), and she’d smile. We’d pull up to her school at 7:28am but she wouldn’t get out of the car until it said 7:30am on the phone, the radio, and the driver dashboard. I’d say, “Get out. Let’s go. I gotta go to work,” when all I actually wanted was for her to stay in the car forever. But, of course, every morning she’d grab her stuff, leave her dirty napkin in the car, and walk to school with her back turned toward me. And then one day she walked away and never came back.

Now I walk out the back door alone at 7:12am, get in the car quietly, slowly, morosely, put my lunch bag and backpack in the backseat like a giant lonely loser, and make a right out of the garage. I listen to NPR because there’s no one to listen to Noah Kahan with, but I’m not listening. I’m staring out over Lake Shore Drive, at the water, at the clouds, at the rising sun, longing for my dead kid.

Her dirty socks aren’t on the stairs. Her bathroom counter isn’t overflowing with skincare products. There are no empty Celsius bottles outside her bedroom. No broken phone chargers hanging from various outlets around the house. No used paper towels on the floor of my car. No coats falling out of the closet. Sometimes I forget about her for a few hours. One time I didn’t think about her for an entire day. Those were the saddest 24 hours of my life. What’s worse than a child who has disappeared?

I picture her in her dorm room at college, lying in the fetal position on her bed and scrolling through TikTok. I wish she were in the living room at our house, lying in the fetal position on our blue couch and scrolling through TikTok. I want to pinch her legs, smother her with a blanket, and mock her relentlessly.

I picture her playing tennis in sweltering humidity in New Orleans, laughing with her friends and getting pissy when she loses a point. I wish she were playing tennis on a cool fall day in Chicago, laughing with me and getting pissy when she loses a point. I want to remind her to move her feet, watch her whiff an overhead, and mock her relentlessly.

I picture her studying quietly in the library, struggling with a complex Chemistry problem and feeling anxious about her next exam. I wish she were studying quietly at the kitchen counter, struggling with a complex Chemistry problem and feeling anxious about her next exam. I want to tell her to keep grinding, give her a hug, and whisper into her ear that she’s my favorite person in the world.

Sometimes she calls but mostly she texts. I read her messages but I can’t hear her voice or feel her frustration or excitement or fear or joy. The words are just empty words on a lifeless screen. No sound. No emotion. No humanity. Just death. The family puts her on speaker phone while we eat lunch but I can barely hear her and everyone keeps interrupting. I want to steal the phone, take her upstairs with me, and talk forever. Sometimes Boni and I argue about eating on the couch or playing piano or something else stupid. She starts to cry and, out of nowhere, says, “I miss [Panini].” I say, “Yeah, so do I.”

I sent her a pair of white Reeboks but I don’t get to see her take them out of the box with a giant smile on her face. I don’t get to see her sit down on the floor and lace those bad boys up. I don’t get to see her wear them out the front door like a motherfucking baller. And I don’t get to see those white Reeboks get dirty over time because she wears them to her 312 class at the gym or dinner at Summer House with her friends or parties at “the garage” with sketchy boys or Lolla with thousands of filthy animals. She’s wearing those white Reeboks all the time and living so hard and they’re getting dirtier every day but I can only picture them as white and clean because a dead person doesn’t wear shoes or get them dirty. I’ll only see those white Reeboks get dirty when she’s lying in her coffin and people throw dirt on her shoes and her cold dead body.

I know she doesn’t want to die. Most days she tells us she loves us, some days she tells us she misses us, and occasionally she tells us she’s feeling sad and lonely and that she can’t wait to see us in October when, for a second, she will be alive again.

Watch out your kids don’t go dying on you. Hold on to them as tight as you can. Suffocate them in your arms so they don’t die far away.