Where We Going, Daddy__ Life With Two Sons Unlike Any Other - Jean-Louis Fournier [2]
The incredible pain and loss is universal for all of us parents, across both the gender and the cultural divide: the desire for what-could-have-been: games we will never play, books we will never share, loves we will never see bloom.
There is something that comes to all parents who have children like Mathieu and Thomas and my Zachariah. Even the most tough-minded truth-teller has had this longing: the fantasy of our children as whole, perfect. I still have dreams of walking into a room and seeing Zachariah there, smiling and pleased with himself. He looks up brightly as if to say, Where have you been? Often he speaks aloud in the sweetest, softest voice. The voice I imagined he would have if ever he could speak.
Like Matheiu and Thomas, Zachariah lived in a residential facility, looked after by a wonderful and loving staff of nurses and care-workers. His father and I visited, but eventually Zach was too fragile to be able to come for visits at home. After Zach died, I received letters from people who tried to comfort me by saying that Zach was now an angel in a place where he was set free. In my head I don’t believe that, but in my heart—a mother’s heart—I can see Zachariah as a young man, blond and blue-eyed and so handsome that all the girls turn to look as he runs by.
Without the brain-damage, the genetic misfortune, the missing enzyme, or added chromosome—who would our children be? Even Fournier, the least sentimental of writers, ponders meeting his sons in an afterlife:
Will we recognize each other? … I won’t dare ask if you’re still handicapped … Do handicaps even exist in heaven? Maybe you’ll be like everyone else?
Will we be able to speak man to man, and tell each other things that really matter, things I couldn’t say to you on earth because you didn’t understand French and I couldn’t speak Impish?
Perhaps in heaven we’ll finally be able to understand each other …
Who’s to say?
There are moments when this is not a comfortable book to read; it is not a story of how love and dedication can triumph over extreme adversity. There is no happy ending. But Fournier is honest in revealing the feelings of those of us whose children are irrevocably damaged. He gives permission and voice to these deepest, darkest, and most complicated emotions. And I believe that ultimately, it is only honesty that heals.
Where We Going, Daddy? bespeaks a fierce and lamenting love. Fournier dares to reveal the searing truth about a grief that has no end. And that, indeed, is a truth that must be told.
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FERN KUPFER is the author of the memoir Before and After Zachariah: A Family Story About a Different Kind of Courage.
Dear Mathieu,
Dear Thomas,
When you were little I was sometimes tempted, come Christmas, to give you a book, maybe one of the Tintin books. We could have talked about it together afterward. I know Tintin really well, I’ve read all of them several times.
I never did it, there wasn’t any point, you couldn’t read. You’ll never be able to read. Right to the end your Christmas presents will always be building bricks and toy cars …
Now that Mathieu has gone chasing after his ball somewhere we can never help him find it, now that Thomas, who’s still with us, has his head more and more in the clouds, I am going to give you a book. A book I’ve written for you.
So that you’re not forgotten, and you’re not just a picture on a disability card. So I can write some of the things I never said, perhaps some regrets. I haven’t been a very good father; often I just couldn’t take you, you were difficult to love. The two of you needed the patience of an angel, and I’m no angel.
To tell you I’m sorry we couldn’t be happy together, and perhaps also to apologize for getting you so wrong.
We just didn’t get lucky, you and us. It all landed in our laps, it’s what they call bad luck.
I’m going to stop complaining.
When people mention handicapped children they put on a solemn expression as if they were talking about some catastrophe. For once I want to