Читать книгу Let’s Not Live on Earth - Sarah Blake - Страница 8

SUICIDE PREVENTION

New signs at all the local train stations—

Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

I’m glad my son can’t read yet.

Yesterday morning he made up a friend, Lofty,

who was captured by bad guys.

My husband asked, Loffy?

He said, No, with a T.

If it was a v, it would be Lof-vee.

He’s starting to get it.

If it was a circle, it would be Lof-circle.

He’s almost starting to get it.

Today he tells me he’s dead. He’s a ghost.

He misses his ghost family.

Something’s wrong because they’re inside

the wall but he can’t get through.

Then he walks into the wall to show me.

Then a ghost ladybug shows up who can get

through the wall, and he saves everyone.

My son bends down to hug a family

of very small ghosts.

I don’t know how to talk to him about death.

When I told him about his great grandfather,

who he’s named after, and that conversation

led right where you think—He’s dead—

he told me, Only bad guys die, and I

could only argue that so many times.

Before I tell my son about suicide, I want to

tell him about murder, I want to tell him

about dying of an illness, about dying in sleep.

It feels awful to hold that plan inside me,

to know this ranking of death.

Do I tell him about genocide last? Or

how you keep hearing for a few minutes

after you die? How I’d like him to play me

a nice song and repeat that he loves me.

How he better tell me first

if he wants to take his life because

I would understand that.

I’ve understood that for a long time.