Monday, May 25, 2015

The Stormtroopers Are Crying

I had one of the most profound parenting experiences of my life last night.

We've been trying to get Simon started on the Harry Potter stories, thinking the story of the quirky boy will resonate with him and that the ultimate bad guy will hold massive appeal. We've told him about Voldemort to entice him, but it's been rough going, because we're only about 30 pages in and it's been too slow for him.

Last night  I read a few pages but we still didn't get to anything juicy. When I stopped reading and turned out the light, Simon started to get really angry.  He wailed and insisted that he wanted me to keep reading and hear about Voldemort. I quickly realized the feelings he was showing were way bigger than warranted for the situation, so I decided to try and give him space to show whatever was going on.

I kept gently saying "We're done reading for the night honey.  We can read more tomorrow". He started wailing loud enough that Laura poked her head in to make sure everything was okay. He sobbed and quieted down in cycles but then started ramping up to real crying.  At one point he used the word "heartbroken" and my eyes started to sting with tears.Then, all of a sudden, in the middle of a jag about Voldemort,  he choked out, "He makes me want to cry!".  I almost sat bolt upright in bed. This was the first time he had ever said anything close to "When x happens, I feel y".  I kept lying with him, trying to see what else he had to show me.

He kept crying real tears and clearly feeling more sad than mad, so I started saying something to him that I used to say when he was a baby in the hospital. I used it especially when he was having painful procedures done or one of the multiple times he was septic and feeling godawful.  I kept softly repeating, "I hear you Simon.  I hear how upset you are.  I'm right here".  Everytime I'd say it he would cry harder.

At one point I said, "I hear how sad you are Simon. I wanted to let you know that I'm not sad, I'm feeling okay, so I can be here with you and listen while you're sad".  He stopped crying and I thought for a moment.  I said, "Simon, do you want me to be sad too?".  Quietly, he said, "Yes".  I asked, "Do you want me to cry too?"  He said yes.  I started to fake cry and he started sniffling and sounding like he might cry.  Then I started to real cry a little and he began to cry again.  After a few minutes of this, he settled down a bit and started talking, in a small, sad voice.

What he proceeded to do blew me away.

He went through a series of approximately 20 characters from movies, books, TV shows and his life. For each one, he said they were crying and then, with prompting, told me why.

It went like this:
Simon: Barbie is crying
Me: Why is Barbie crying?
Simon: Because her Dreamhouse is gone.
Me: Oh, that's so so sad. She must be so sad.

Here are just a few that I can remember:
Professor Callahan (Big Hero 6) is crying because his daughter is gone
The Boov (from the movie Home) are crying because their planet is gone
Rosetta (from the Disney Fairies) is crying because Tinkerbell is gone
MM (Laura's Mom) is crying because her daughter is gone.
The Storm Troopers are crying because their guns are gone (this one particularly got me)

It went on like this for about 20 minutes.  The thing that struck me most was that each person lost the thing that meant the very most to them. They weren't crying because they lost a comic book, or a toy. They lost their person or their planet or the most identifying thing about them. I just lay in stunned silence between each version.

A few times I asked him why he was crying or why he was sad.  He would get really quiet. At one point I said, "Do you know why you are sad or do you just have sad feelings?"  He quickly said, "Sad feelings".  He mostly didn't want me to touch him but at one point I put my hand on his chest. I asked him if he wanted me to leave it or take it off, he said to leave it.  I explained that sometimes when I feel sad it feels tight in my chest and sometimes tight in my throat too.  When I asked him if it felt like that for him, he said yes.

When it seemed like things were winding down, I asked why he was sad one more time. He thought for a minute and said, "My father is gone".  I had a moment of "Oh, God, are we having this conversation right now?" but decided to just roll with it and ask who his father was.  He answered "Darth Vader". I breathed a silent sigh of relief and silently chuckled.

More clues this morning when he and I were playing with 2 of his dolls.  He told me my doll wasn't feeling well and that his doll was the doctor.  I asked him what was wrong with my doll, and when he didn't answer, I decided to try to push a little. I said, "Oh, Doctor I'm so glad you're here.  My heart feels sick".  He turned his doll around immediately and said "Not available".  Trying to keep my face neutral, I said, "Oh, sorry, I mean my knee hurts".  His doll came over and did a little treatement and said, "There!  Now you're all better".  My doll thanked his doll and we went on our merry way.

I'm just so in awe of how sophisticated his brain is and heartbroken about how sad he is. What he described with all his examples is the most deep, existential grief.  His way of communicating what is happening inside reminds me so much of the autistic boy in "Life Animated" (an INCREDIBLE read/listen- highly recommend it if you want to understand Simon).

What has happened in the last 12 hours just reminds me that we can't come at any of this head on with Simon, but if we take one step back to give him some space and listen carefully, he is speaking volumes. 

3 comments:

Laura Perry said...

Oh. My heart. This is beautiful, and deep, and... big. I don't fully know how to articulate how much this moves me.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure that S Beckett ever dealt with his existential grief any better than Simon does.







In the hospital and nursing home where he spent his final days, Beckett wrote his last work, the 1988 poem "What is the Word" ("Comment dire"). The poem grapples with an inability to find words to express oneself, a theme echoing Beckett's earlier work, though possibly amplified by the sickness he experienced late in life. Died at 83. (wickepedia)



Here is the poem, way beyond my comprehension, though I keep trying to 'understand'





By Samuel Beckett
I have recently begun to show the Theological aspect of Beckett's literature and I have come across his last work which is a short crafty poem. In the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God." Similarly Christ once said that "The spirit of God is within you." If you were to juxtapose 'God' with 'What', and he were as Christ said 'within you'; Maybe you would get something like this?

What is the Word

By Samuel Beckett


folly -
folly for to -
for to -
what is the word -
folly from this -
all this -
folly from all this -
given -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this -
this -
what is the word -
this this -
this this here -
all this this here -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this this here -
for to -
what is the word -
see -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse -
what -
what is the word -
and where -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse what where -
where -
what is the word -
there -
over there -
away over there -
afar -
afar away over there -
afaint -
afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -
seeing all this -
all this this -
all this this here -
folly for to see what -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
afaint afar away over there what -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -


what is the word

Anonymous said...

This is beautiful. I just came over here from FB (probably Laura, above, posted the link), and read backward a ways to get some context. I decided to comment because my son was recently diagnosed with depression and panic attacks with suicidal ideation, and I feel the pain around the constant, non-stop, painfulness of the parenting--and we haven't been doing it ANYWHERE near as long. Plus, we expect to come out of the intense period, at least mostly, eventually. There is something terrible about watching your child struggle with such sadness and not be able to fix it, or even to know what to do. There was a period where our son would have attacks and would end up sobbing, big wracking sobs, on our bedroom floor, and wouldn't let us touch him, and anything we said would set him crying harder. We just had to sit there and watch him.

I was struck by the beauty of the way you listen to your son. He is very lucky to have that. Lucky to have both of you.

I will add you to the circle of people I hold regularly in the Light, if that is all right with you. Many blessings to you.

P.S. I'm commenting "anonymously" only because I don't want to link the information about my son to my public profiles. My name is Heather and Laura knows who I am if you ever wanted to contact me privately.