First published June 1, 2000, this essay has remained a favourite of fourth and longest-serving Facts & Arguments editor Moira Dann: "This was the first essay I published by Bill Bunn; he has been in F&A many times since. His writing is most evocative and I love how he skilfully, astutely observes the quotidian of his children's lives and then extrapolates to big truths about his life, our lives."
I actually wished he had started to kick and scream; it makes it so much easier when they kick and scream.
But, he's a dedicated little boy, so he tries to take well most of what we throw at him. I watched him trying to manage his emotions as he contemplated me leaving him alone there. His chin trembled, and he blinked hard as I sat him down to take off his backwards boots, ones that he had proudly put on himself a few moments earlier. I watched his shoulders sag as the moment approached.
His body went limp as I removed his hat and coat. As soon as he was ready, he gave me a big hug and kiss, then went to the window as I prepared to leave him there. I stepped outside, moved toward the car, and then turned to him, to that place in the window where his face usually was.
Read two more of Moira's favourites: The wheel of death and life and My children meet Mr. Purple.
Read other former editors' favourites: Philip's picks, Constance's picks and Katherine's picks.
He smiled weakly as I gave him my grin-and-bear-it smile -- it's really facial advice. Then he started blowing kisses, as the tears rolled down his cheeks. I couldn't handle the sight anymore, so I turned and ran back to my car, afraid that if I turned to look once more, I'd quit my job to stay home and play with him forever.
As I drove away, my eyes averting my siren son, I noticed an angular pain in my soul, one I'd not felt very often. After a short session of emotional arithmetic, I could only locate one other occasion I felt this particular kind of painful longing: my grandfather's death.
He passed away when I was a teenager, and I remember struggling to understand what death meant in my lived experience. I couldn't understand the afterlife. How can you understand forever?
What's your favourite Facts & Arguments essay? As the section celebrates its 20th year, share your memories of great F&A submissions.
I felt claustrophobic thinking about what it might be like to be sleeping inside a coffin under the ground. Instead, I learned to believe that death was simply absence: he was "gone." That parting of ways, and lingering absence conjured this odd, and particularly sharp, sort of pain. Because I've learned to understand death as an absence, what my son and I suffered as we waved goodbye, was nothing more than a small dying, a death, an on-the-spot, makeshift funeral.
You could accuse me of being overly dramatic. I've accused myself of the same thing. I've taken my feelings to task, insisting that I get over this inappropriate emotion immediately.
But I can't.
And, now, I don't believe I'm being overly dramatic. Death and goodbye are the same thing, existentially speaking: my son was absent from my day, just as my grandfather is. My emotions, no matter how much I tried to jimmy them into seeing things another way, will not budge. They have marked this kind of occasion for me as a death.
So, death I must live with as I work through my professional day.
But, then, when the locks on my briefcase snap closed, I hop in the car to return to that home where I left him earlier in the day. What a miracle moment it is: The dead are brought back to life. I witness the resurrection once we make eye contact. The morning's shroud buries itself in our reunion, and death's permanent marks are wiped away for a moment. These milliseconds of joy have become one of my favourite instants.
Our reuniting is one moment of pure life, for in that moment death is completely erased. My time with my son has not yet become tinged with the weight of future goodbyes, nor the sly death of taking one another for granted: it is my complete, momentary appreciation of my son, without the thought of what may lie ahead. A complete celebration of life. A huge party, lasting two heartbeats.
As I have come to understand goodbye and hello and their profound significance in my life, I don't let those moments go unlived. I've given up resenting them and have embraced these daily deaths and resurrections.
These are some of the mundane miracles that bring a tear to my eye every time they happen, and hold me close to the root of what living is all about.
What's your favourite Facts & Arguments essay? As the section celebrates its 20th year, share your memories of great F&A submissions in the comment field below.