It’s the sound of your child trying to be brave when he’s really sad and then not being able to contain his feelings and little sobbing sighs and hiccups leak out as he hugs you super tight with his face pressed against your neck. It's the sound of sadness in his little voice as he tells you the thing that made him so happy is gone forever.
It was awful. Really really awful.
Kael is Student of the Week so we made an All About Me board to share with his class. We selected pictures and pasted them with little captions describing what they mean to Kael. I have Kael’s board broken down into three sections: My Family & Friends, Places I’ve Visited, and My Favorite Things. Under Favorite Things I pasted on one of my favorite pictures of Kael:
I love this picture! His mile-wide smile, the look of joy on his face and all the creepy crawlies in his hand – it’s one of those “a picture is worth a thousand words” pictures. Plus he talked about those worms forever. So of course I had to put it on his board.
Last night Truong was helping Kael put the finishing touches on his board and I guess Kael got really sad when he saw this picture. When I came downstairs, Truong told Kael to tell me what he said. Kael looked at me and said: “Mom, I really miss them” in a soft, tiny voice, with his chin tucked into his chest. I wasn't sure if I heard correctly so I asked him to repeat it.
Kael: “Mom, they’re all gone.”
His voice starts to quiver a little and he refused to look at me in the eyes.
Me: “It’s OK honey. We can get some more.”
Truong and I share a look, not really sure of what we should do because clearly Kael is upset but trying to be brave.
Kael: “I really miss them, Mom!”
And he climbs into my lap and presses his face against my neck. This is when I realize that he’s really upset and he starts to cry softly.
Me: “It’s OK, baby. It’s OK to be sad. That’s what silk moths do: they grow into worms, make cocoons, turn into moths, lay eggs and then die. But we can get more.”
As I say this I wonder/worry if he will interpret this into human terms by equating this to people having a baby and then dying. I mentally grimace and cross my fingers that that won’t be the case.
Kael: “No, Mom. My silk worms… They're not ever coming back... They’re gone… FOREVER.”
And he cries harder.
Oh geez. I don’t know what to say at this point, so I just hug him and tell him it’s OK to be sad. All the while I’m (1) cursing Shana for ever giving him those damn silk worms; (2) thinking I’m going to have to ask her for more worms as it looks like we’re going to have to foster another 300 of these suckers; and (3) thinking to myself: this is the reason why I don’t want to have a dog. If he’s this emotional over a bunch of worms that in fact died and not went home as I (falsely) told him, he’s going to completely fall apart when he loses a dog.
After that conversation where Ryan told Kael that his worms died, Kael hardly ever talked about his worms. I wondered why because he used to talk about them all the time and I wondered if he got that they died. I guess he did understand but didn't want to talk about it. What a tough lesson to learn.
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