End of Days

(3 years 5 months)

Dear Trevor,

Mommy got your Phases of the Moon poster framed. We hung it on the wall in the hallway at Trevor height, and you have become intensely interested in the calendar. You ‘read’ the months and count the days over and over.

I use quotation marks up there because I thought I was helping you with them yesterday, only to realize you have the months just about memorized. Today I’m in the kitchen and you’re lying on the floor in the dinning area, kind of half watching me. In general you are a busy guy. You’ve got your extensive train collections, your Stix, and now you are just getting into Leggos. But there are times when you are like you are now, which seem to me to be pensive. If I referred your current state to myself I’d call it contemplative. And damned if here it doesn’t come. ‘When we get to December,’ you ask, ‘what came next.’

That rocked me a bit, and I answered cautiously. I said, ‘Nothing comes after December, honey. What we do is start all over again with January.’

You come right back at me, ‘But what's the last day of December?’

‘December has thirty-one days, so the last day we call the thirty-first.’

‘And then do we die?’ you ask.

I knew something was coming. I think I have to give you the short answer, though I feel guilty doing it. ‘No,’ I say, ‘we don’t die. Days are just the way we have of keeping track of time. The days go on and on, there's no last day. There is always tomorrow, day after day. ‘Every year you have a birthday in August. So August keeps coming around. If August didn't come around you wouldn't have a birthday, and you'd always be three years old.’

You gave me a look like you weren't buying it. ‘Think of it,’ I said, ‘what would happen if we woke up and there was no more day?’

You looked at me for a few moments, then your face lighted up, ‘We just stay home,’ you said.

Love, Daddy