When Luke was really young — days, weeks old — we began
taking walks with him around our neighborhood in the evenings when it wasn’t
too hot outside.
I remember looking around on one of those first walks and
feeling overwhelmed.
It was so hard to imagine that he knew virtually nothing; he
had experienced virtually nothing. The scents in the air, the colors, the
noises, the air itself — all new.
It was overwhelming; the sheer weight of the world. All of
the things he needed to learn.
A few months ago, Luke was very interested in all the
vehicles we would see while driving. We would tell him what they were and what
they did.
We came upon a money car — the armored vehicles that
transport money from place to place. As Luke loved pointing out the big bank
near our house, we were excited to tell him about the money car.
And there was that weight again. How do I explain to him why
the money car has to be armored? Not knowing what armor is, he hasn’t asked,
and I haven’t explained.
But there was that overwhelming feeling again. The weight of
all the bad things in the world. Things that sooner or later we will have to
try to explain for him.
How do you explain these things?
One day, I envision my much-older children asking me about
9/11. About Columbine. About Boston. About the times when their uncles were at
war.
And it’s overwhelming. To become a voice for that experience
— my experience, which is not like others’ experiences. Not like the experiences
of people who saw it in person, people who lived through it, the person who sat
next to me when we saw that news on TV or Facebook or from the receiving end of
instant messages sent from Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s a weight, a
responsibility in becoming the voice of that experience to someone who was not
here.
I want to do it right.
And it’s overwhelming.
