Saving Graces - Elizabeth Edwards [59]
Cate was at the Talent Identification Program at Duke University. She had been the year before, and—whether or not she liked the six weeks of classes—she loved the program and the young people from across the South who attended. We thought it would be best for her to go again, to get out of our gloomy house for a while, and—bells, whistles, and fireworks—attend what I called “Math Camp.” Of course it also meant that for that time we were not in control of her life, that we couldn’t protect her. Three weeks after Wade died, a substitute teacher in one of her eighth-grade classes had asked how many in the class were only children. And it was about to happen again. Her precalculus teacher at Duke had called one day to let us know that he had decided to take a break in class and have the students write an essay. His topic: “What I like most about having a brother or sister, or being an only child.” He hadn’t known about Wade until he read Cate’s essay. Apparently she handled it. It was clear, however, that despite all the efforts to prepare those around our child, we could not count on that. We would need to prepare the child herself.
It was hard to prepare Cate because even at fourteen she was strong and independent. The next school year, her biology teacher interjected in class that the lovely old trees at Oakwood Cemetery, where Wade was buried, were large and full because they were fertilized by the decaying bodies around them. When I was told, I put my head in my hands. When she heard it, she just looked down at her book and willed herself steady. She had always done it. And it was hard to prepare Cate because she busied herself with making our lives easier, caring for John and me. Could she bring us dinner? Did we want to play a game? Want to walk down to the creek? How many times, then and now, I have thought of the line from Isaiah, “And the little child shall lead them.” For we were led by Cate, reminded of joy by Cate, and blessed with Cate.
So seeing Cate on Wade’s birthday helped. But the day was still hard. I wrote on ASG that night, We need sometimes to place our feelings about someone in a box. We place the boxes on shelves in our hearts, some high, placed where we almost forget them, until some picture or invitation—maybe a song—reminds us to pull it down and open it. I had to place Wade in a box of his own. A dark cherry box long enough for a six-foot boy. It is difficult to write, for words and tears are poor company for one another. The tears must go to make room for the words, so I focus hard on a picture of Wade at ten, his head leaning against the arm of an old sofa at Holden Beach, his pale blue eyes wide and filled with as much love as any photograph could possibly capture. The tender edges of a smile cross his face. We had come in from the porch crowded with cousins and second cousins, come into the dark