“Sam…” I say. “You know how you hate those ‘mixed feelings’ adults are always talking about?” I swallow. “Well, this is where they start. This is where they come from. Because you’re right, Sam, we live in a world full of terrible things.” I look at him. “I agree with you. I’d have to be in denial not to see those things. And you’re right. They’re bad. And they’re scary.” They scare me every day, I don’t say. I’m scared of the floods and the wildfires, of the destruction being wreaked on our planet; of wars and terrorism and illness, and man’s inhumanity to man. “You’re right to be scared. And angry. It’s good to be angry sometimes; it’s how we remember to change the things that need changing.” I pause.

“I feel all those things, Sam. But—I also feel joy. And wonder and curiosity. And I’ve had so many years to stop feeling those things, Sam. So many more years than you for those feelings to get old and tired and go away, but they never quite do—although it can seem that way for a while.

“You’re right that we’re supposed to feel the bad things, Sam,” I say. “Fear, pain, even dread. But…we’re allowed to feel the other things too.” I look over at him. “There are so many feelings, Sam, and so many things to have feelings about. It’s just how life is. It’s a whole lot of trains on a whole lot of tracks, and the trains are all running, all of the time. We don’t get a break. We feel them all.”

I look at my nephew, his blue eyes staring out into the distance—not angry now, but something else. His chin trembles.

“But it’s supposed to get easier,” he says finally. He says it like I’ve taken something from him—like I’ve stolen something he was once promised.

“I’m not sure that it does,” I say gently. “Not really.”

He looks at me, those blue eyes all indignant and angry and afraid.

“But you get stronger,” I say. “You do, Sam. You will.”

He turns away from me again and I see an angry hand reach up to swipe at his eyes. I give him a minute, then reach my arm around his shoulder. He shrugs it off sharply but then, face still turned away, he leans his body into mine and starts to cry. I put a hand against his warm hair.

It won’t be the last time he feels this way. It won’t be the last time something inside him cries out, it was supposed to be easier, this isn’t what I was promised. And yet, life will continue to offer him its gifts.