"When the one you love dies, you lose them everywhere — not just in the past, but in the future, all the possible futures." — Megan Devine
Today, the Friday after Thanksgiving, is the StoryCorps' National Day of Listening, when people are encouraged to sit down with a loved one and record a meaningful conversation. I wish I could be with Rader today to talk about his life. Not about his death. Those questions could wait for another time.
But I'd like to know, for instance, all the reasons he liked the video game Shovel Knight. He played it a lot in the last few months of his life, and I never sat down and watched him and asked what he enjoyed about it. He didn't want to talk about school, or his feelings, or a lot of other things, probably like any other 15-year-old boy.
He would have talked about Shovel Knight. If I had asked.
There's a possible future in which we could be having that conversation today, on the day after Thanksgiving, relaxing at home together. He could show me the characters and tell me about the quests, and share with me the silly things that made him laugh, and the clever twists that impressed him in the way the game was crafted. Maybe then we would talk about the kinds of games and projects he was creating, and also what sorts of new ideas he hadn't started working on yet.
Instead, I have seen my husband play a little bit and I've read about Shovel Knight on Wikipedia. I can pick up hints of what probably appealed to Rader. But they're just guesses. Any enjoyment I can get from the game will always be separate from Rader, not together with him.
I wish today I could listen to my kid.