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Back The Presence of Absence
Chapters (40)
  1. also by simon van booy
  2. the presence of absence
  3. Title Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Prologue
  7. the presence of absence
  8. Part One
  9. 27.
  10. 26.
  11. 25.
  12. 24.
  13. 23.
  14. 22.
  15. 21.
  16. 20.
  17. 19.
  18. 18.
  19. 17.
  20. 16.
  21. 15.
  22. 14.
  23. 13.
  24. 12.
  25. 11.
  26. 10.
  27. 9.
  28. 8.
  29. 7.
  30. 6.
  31. 5.
  32. 4.
  33. 3.
  34. 2.
  35. 1.
  36. [quick black]
  37. [scene change]
  38. Part Two
  39. acknowledgments
  40. a note about the author

As you might have done, too, I returned to the beach each day after, hoping to experience the certainty I had felt that moment in the pouring rain. By then, the news was settling and with it came the stark realization that Hadley would simply not survive my (Max’s) absence from the life we (they) had built together.

I knew this for sure, because all the strength a person unknowingly sets aside for that sort of loss had been used up by the loss of our son, Adam.

I’m going to end this chapter early because I want to think about him for a while. It hurts, of course, but it’s the most wonderful pain because it means he did not spend a single day of his short life unloved.

12.

There was something in his body that couldn’t be fixed. He had no idea of course⁠—Adam was just an infant.

I use the word just foolishly, I know, believing I can anesthetize the sentence. And notice how I employ the term infant, from the Latin infantem (meaning speechless), as opposed to baby, from late Middle English (to mimic a child’s first attempts at speech).

So often as an author I’ve witnessed the evasive power of language. How meaning does not come from single words, but from words in the context of other words, which would be impossible without single words to make up the sentence.

When the doctors were certain, we were given the chance to take Adam home until the end. My wife didn’t ask my opinion and I just agreed because I was too afraid of making the wrong decision⁠—even though there is no such thing, apparently, in these situations.

In the months after Adam’s cremation, Hadley and I almost split.

Our near separation was not because we didn’t love each other, but because it hurt to love anything.

Eventually, we found a way to live but it took a lot of counseling, exhaustive cycles of talking, and many days of the dense fog that numbs you to everything but keeps hopelessness at bay (nights being the worst, as you may well know).

In the end, we found a way to harness grief to logic: Would baby Adam have wanted his mother and father to suffer because of him? And so, to honor his spirit, we stayed together, and in time realized it was what we wanted, too. That’s not to say the sadness doesn’t sometimes break free; it still happens and those days are hard, no matter how much time passes.

But now you can understand how it was another thing that helped me to cope. Adam was out there somewhere, and soon enough, I would be out there, too.

11.