A Heart That Works

by Rob Delaney

That is one thing grief does to me. It makes me want to make you understand. It makes me want you to understand. I want you to understand. But you, statistically, cannot. You forget that my son died. Then you remember. Then you forget again. I don’t forget.

one Sunday, I gathered up Eugene and Oscar while Leah was resting, and we boarded the bus up to the Whittington. Truly one of my favorite memories as a dad ever: riding on the top of a double-decker to familiarize myself with the route to the hospital, with my trusty lieutenants in tow.

This is just lovely. I can even feel the excitement myself.

To explain, I can only offer that I recognized this was my shot, at age thirty-seven, to solidly “break into the biz,” and I falsely assumed that to do so, I should or could hit “pause” on my family responsibilities. I’d like to invite any and all readers to slap themselves at this point, on my behalf, to underline with a physical sensation that one cannot hit pause on family responsibilities.

We don’t know what will happen and it’s not our job to know. Just go for the ride, baby! If it weren’t cool, (literally) everyone wouldn’t be doing it.