From January 22, 2020
I wonder what Elliot would be doing today if he were still alive because it is a snow day. Are his classes cancelled? First, he would probably sleep in until noon, but would he take the extra day to study for a big test? Would the little boy escape with his friends and go outside to play in the snow? There would be snowball fights, snowmen, and snow forts on campus. Would he play? Would he drink hot cocoa, or would he have started drinking coffee by now?
A boy who drinks hot cocoa
In October, he was still a cocoa person, and he was still a boy who had boyish tastes. Elliot had not embraced things like coffee yet, and my son had not ripened or matured his tongue.
Elliot’s tongue will never change. Since he died so young, he will always be a boy who drinks cocoa not coffee, eats chicken nuggets, ice cream cones, peanut butter spoons, and clementines. Will he always be 18? The kids are still in order now, but what will we do when Audrey turns 18?
A father stuck inside
Nobody is playing in the snow here, and it feels like a prison. The cold feels like a threat to our hearts like we could freeze any moment. Will the little boy in me come out to play? I think he is quite ill and stuck in bed. He is hurting and crying and scared and lonely.
The boy inside me imagines a place where all the other boys are sledding down hills, and where they pile on to toboggans together and fly. However, no one is ringing the doorbell at my house, and I would probably tuck my head under the covers and pretend not to hear if they did.
It is a snow day, and all of us have shut ourselves inside.
