The other day Elliot said to me, “I don’t want my parents to die.” Then he hugged me – hard and long. It was so precious and special to me. I can’t explain it. I think he is coming to understand that his parents will die. He sees my parents have died. I have photos of them around the house, and he asks about them. Maybe he asks Karolina about her parents. He asks about death a lot.
Contrast this to Jan 22, 2023 when he said, after I asked him if he’d bury me in a Jewish cemetery when I died, “But you don’t die because you’re new and I’m new.” I wrote a lot about that in an earlier entry; it was during his first cemetery visit,
There is something about Elliot’s learning of death that is sad for me. It’s the loss of his innocence.
Today he said to me, out of the blue, “Daddy, there was another singer who died in a plane crash.” He could not tell me who it was. But he’s referring back to a few days ago when we listened to “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce and “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver. I told him both singers died in plane crashes.“He wasn’t wearing his seat belt?” Elliot asked. I didn’t want to explain at that moment, so I said, “Yes.”
Easter Egg Hunt Pictures
It was the first time Max came to the house in more than a year.
