I got a text last Wednesday from Kai's aid asking if our dog had died. Kai had apparently started to cry at school, and when they asked him why, that was the explanation he gave. It happened with his aid, it happened with his special ed teacher. He was sensitive around the other kids.
I felt so bad for him, and had begun to beat myself up over how I'd handled telling him. I wished I'd given him more time to say goodbye to Elliott. I wished there'd been more time for him to get used to the idea that Elliott wasn't going to live much longer. But I thought we had more time.
We always think we have more time.
I printed out some pictures of Elliott like Kai had asked me to, bought some frames for them, and, anticipating his request, made him a t-shirt with Elliott's face on it, which was my singular best achievement in t-shirt art.
I showed it to Kai when I picked him up.
“I don't want a t-shirt,” he said. “I want a hamster.”
“You're not getting a hamster,” I said.
Kai's teacher tried to talk up my shirt. “Look at this shirt your mom made!"
Kai held up his hand to block the shirt from his view. “I don't want that shirt,” he repeated.
I was disappointed that I hadn't cheered him up with the shirt, and so I suggested going for ice cream.
Both of the kids heartily agreed.
Ryan gamely ate her cone (vanilla with sprinkles) and chatted happily about school. Kai (two scoops of chocolate) ate his in silence. The silence itself was not unusual, but the look on his face was, the unmistakable sadness in his eyes.
When Ryan suggested we hit up a playground, I thought that would be a great idea—a good way to avoid going to our dogless house for a little while.
I caught a glimpse of Kai while we were driving. He looked so sad, so dejected. I'd never seen him look like that, not when he flooded the house, never when he broke a toy or got hurt. This was different, a persistent and pervasive sadness that I was powerless to fix with t-shirts or ice cream.
“Kai, are you okay?” I asked.
“I just miss Elliott so much,” he said. “And I want a hamster.”
“You're not getting a hamster.”
“You could go to the pet store and buy one,” he suggested. He sounded almost belligerent.
“No.”
We drove in silence for a while.
“I would never let it out of its cage,” he said.
“That, Kai, is the biggest lie you've ever told.”
:::
I lost him at the park, which was packed on a day that felt like spring but was really only 55 degrees.
I finally found him sitting in a tree, gazing out into nothing, the slump of his shoulders telling me everything I needed to know.
“I miss him too,” I said, reaching up to rub his back.
:::
I thought about Kai all day, kicking myself for not giving Kai the chance to hug the dog one last time, for knowing this would happen and not finding a way to better prepare him.
Guilt gnawed at the edges of my belly in the way guilt does. I played out the ways I could have handled the conversation, what I could do now to help him though this.
And it suddenly it dawned on me what was wrong. I don't know why it took me so long to recognize it, but I knew I wasn't being realistic thinking I could just kiss him and make it all better.
Kai had a broken heart.
:::
I told Scott how badly I felt about not giving Kai a chance to say goodbye to Elliott.
“Oh, my God, really?” he said, sounding incredulous. “That would have been a disaster.”
“You think so?”
I wanted to believe that, and it made sense in a way. I pictured Kai trying to give Elliott a hug, and Elliott, who had always eschewed Kai’s company, panting and heaving and struggling to run away.
I decided I could stop beating myself up, stop thinking I was doing this all wrong.
After all, if you’ve ever heard a single song on the radio, you know that there’s only one way to heal a broken heart.
And it is definitely not a hamster.
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