Transformers
Case in point: if you walk through my house right now, you’ll find Transformers tangled in all the leaves and branches of my larger houseplants, courtesy of my four-year-old grandson, Adam. Transformers, based on movie characters, are small toys that, with a few twists of the moving parts, change from robots into vehicles or weapons. From the moment Adam arrives until the moment he leaves, he spends his time inventing stories for the Transformers to act out, the gorier the better, bad guys versus good guys. In the ferocity of battle, some of them fly into trees or hide under the couch, never to be seen again – or at least until I clean.
His fascination is entirely serious. The other day, while buckling up in the family’s minivan, he announced with great conviction, “This isn’t our car.”
“What do you mean?” his mother asked.
“This is Gray Man, who transforms into our car so we can use it.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
Later, at home, Adam got out and patted the car on the hood before entering the house. “Thanks, Gray Man,” he said.
My novel, The Art of Saying Goodbye, is about a group of women who also undergo a transformation as they respond in very different ways to the illness of a longtime neighbor. In their struggle to help her, they form bonds they don’t expect, and find themselves changing in remarkable ways. But although their friend leaves behind a legacy of joy and friendship, she also leaves a grieving husband and two distraught young daughters.
In the real-life events on which the novel is based, the stricken woman was the star of our neighborhood – the prettiest one, the nicest one, the one who seemed to want nothing more than the lovely family she already had. Even now, years later, it is hard to believe how quickly all that was snatched away. Only once did she ever utter a word of complaint, the day she said she wasn’t in pain (we knew she was), but hated knowing she wouldn’t get to see her girls grow up.
Last week at the beach, Adam had a terrible day. Just before lunch, he ended up under water in the pool, unable to rise to the surface until his father rescued him, unharmed. Hours later, he fell off the top of a bunk bed and hit his head on a metal bar. Although not in pain, he was certainly addled, unable to remember anything that had happened all day or buckle his seatbelt properly. Rushed to the ER, he got surprisingly good treatment, and a CAT scan that showed nothing. By the time he came home, he was clearer-headed, remembering things, returning to normal.
It was then, and not when I was writing my novel, not when I was re-reading it, not until that moment, that I was struck, viscerally, by what I’d known so coolly, all along. The immeasurable lesson of a tragedy that doesn’t quite touch you – but so easily could -- is a new and deeper respect for the gift of time that lets us watch our children, and now, for me, grandchildren, transforming every day.
