A Heart That Works

by Rob Delaney

So you sit there like a decaying disused train station while freight train after freight train overloaded with pain roars through you. Maybe one will derail and explode, destroying the station and killing you, and you can go be with your child. Would that be so bad?

The truth is, despite the death of my son, I still love people. And I genuinely believe, whether it’s true or not, that if people felt a fraction of what my family felt and still feels, they would know what this life and this world are really about.

Grief drove a bus through the part of my brain where memories are stored.

Leah says that reading to each other is so wonderful because it’s both active and passive. You’re lying there being entertained, even if you’re the one reading, and you’re using your imagination much more than if you’re watching TV. And then you can discuss what you’ve both been imagining.

I hesitate to give advice, but I have to say that if you’re ever in a situation like the one in which my family found ourselves, do not forget to love, touch, and look into the eyes of every other family member regularly.

One of the worst parts of depression is that in its cunning, it wholesale convinces you that it will last forever. But that, of course, would be impossible.

When one of us cries to the other, we don’t try to fix it; we don’t stammer platitudes. We just listen and hold.

Reflecting on his physical therapy reminds me that I’m not a fan of the “fighting” metaphor for cancer. I don’t think you fight it, or beat it. The effort I saw Henry expend, again and again, at the age of one, under such duress, suggests someone who could beat anything that can be beaten. Cancer’s pretty much going to do what it wants. Should it come for me, I hope I’ll just ride the wave.

What I would fucking give to do that again. To sleep next to and dream with my beautiful boy. If I died tomorrow, those would probably be the greatest memories of my life.

I must confess I now find it difficult to truly and fully relax around people who haven’t had some significant tragedy and pain in their lives.

I know damn well that I can’t stop kids from dying. But I know who can make a dying kid smile and laugh and feel loved and focused on and cared for. And I like giving them money to do that.

After Henry died, those callouses began to fade away. I hated that. I hated it so much. Please let me have my little hard bumps on my fingers that I can rub and think of him. They reminded me of helping him breathe, which it was my privilege to do. I could touch them and know they were there because of him. They told me that I loved him and he needed me and that he was real.

Eugene is emotionally wise at a nearly preternatural level.

when you spend time with your family in different configurations, you wind up seeing different sides of them.

I AM SO HAPPY Henry died at home. I am so happy that he did so in the arms of his beautiful mother, who loved him desperately.