“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.” C.S. Lewis
Now that Elliot is dead, it is not just the loss of him that is faced, it is the loss of him that can be seen in the eyes of everyone that I love. Gone is the pleasure of seeing him standing around with friends at debate tournaments talking about national security, globalism, or student loans. Gone are his arguments with the boys on the robotics team, and even worse gone is the pleasure of seeing him teach 13-year-olds how to program their clawbot while they look up at him wearing their baggy t-shirts. Gone is Oscar’s look of determination as he sits across from Elliot trying to beat him in Magic.
When Elliot’s friends came through the line at his memorial service, I looked in their eyes and saw that something was gone. It almost looked like a reflection of what I was missing. I remember telling them all, our house is open to you, please come—any time. I told them that because they hold pieces of Elliot that I have never seen. I want to hear any story I can about my son: something that made them laugh, something that made them cry, or angry. Something. Anything. Any connection.
Elliot is gone and the loss of him echoes. Charles Lamb says, “if of three friends (A, B, and C), A should die, then B loses, not only A but A’s part in C, while C loses not only A but A’s part in B.” There are things I will never see Anne do; things I will never hear her say. The same is true for Sarah, Audrey, Alex, and Claudia. And it is true, there is a light no one will ever see in my eyes again because Elliot is gone. My brow will never again furrow in the way it did when Elliot asked a difficult question. Elliot would ask me questions about God, about history, about relationships, about philosophy, about nature that no one else ever did or ever will. Elliot’s sense of wonder about the universe can never be approximated, and no one will see me puzzled in that way again.
The other day my sister was telling me about her son Wes. He is in preschool. He reserves seats in the van for his favorite people. “This seat is for Alex. This one is for Claudia.” Eleven months ago, Wes called my house “Elliot’s house”. But Elliot does not live here anymore.
Wes is so much like Elliot. He looks a lot like Elliot. He thinks a lot like Elliot. He asks difficult questions, but they are Wes questions, not Elliot questions. Elliot and Wes had an appreciation for each other. But Wes will not know Elliot or even remember him. He has not only lost an older and wiser kindred spirit, but he has lost the twinkle of light that Elliot brought into the rest of us. He will only know Elliot in the negative space – in all of us, in all the world – that has been created by Elliot’s death.
