I’ve heard that the human brain can’t really multitask: when we try to do many things at once, we’re really switching back and forth between individual tasks very quickly. Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in my five-year-old’s train of thought, which often leaps from track to track like a Thomas episode on fast-forward.
“Daddy, did you know that sand grouses can carry water back to their nest in their wings? They can. I think we have an assembly today. Remember that time I jumped off the slide? I learned a new joke: knock, knock…” Simply keeping up is enough of a mental workout to send my neuroplasticity through the roof.
And this also happens fairly often: “Daddy, I miss Mommy.” Five second pause. “Honey badgers are really funny.” I never know what direction the inevitable non sequitur will yank us in, but it’s usually unexpected. Is he missing his mom for only five seconds at a time? No—but he is teaching me that his grief can exist right alongside the joy and wonder that’s part and parcel of being five.
I’ve struggled to find the right mental image for myself as I try to figure this out. Maybe it’s like mixing colours: he has both some blue and some red—but no, that makes purple, and the original colours are lost. Baking a cake? You mix together a whole range of ingredients—but then they’re indistinguishable again. Maybe it’s like a fruitcake, and grief is somewhere in those weird chunks of alleged fruit? Closer, but the overall experience of a fruitcake is, on the whole, still a bit too grief-adjacent.
Maybe it’s more like having roommates. When Grief moves in, he isn’t the sort to lounge on the couch watching reality TV and listening to depressing music. No, Grief follows you around the apartment, looking over your shoulder, constantly wanting to chat and to be a part of what you’re doing, like an annoying younger sibling. Sometimes Grief won’t stop talking about subjects you’d rather move on from, and sometimes Grief just appears behind you and makes you jump when his quiet voice two inches from you ear intones, “doesn’t that just remind you of…”
Other roommates have their place, too. Ambition is very exciting to talk to, though he does seem to work a bit too much. Joy is the core of the group and you look forward to the times you get to hang out. Hope likes to sit back and people-watch and is always nice to have around. Sometimes all the activity is just too much for Grief to take, and he leaves to go hang out in his room. At other times, everybody else is at work and it’s just you and Grief warming up some microwave dinners (“doesn’t that just remind you of that weekend back in 2008 when the freezer broke…“).
But most often, the whole lot of you sit around the table and share a meal. Joy, Ambition, Hope, Grief; a group of old friends in animated conversation. Hope and Ambition get into a deep discussion about politics. Grief tells a funny story and Joy laughs so hard that milk comes out his nose. And when you’re five and your filter hasn’t grown in yet, little snippets of these conversations all happening at once get ejected from your mouth with no rhyme or reason as you jump from track to track. Overhearing what’s happening with my kid’s inner roommates has made me more comfortable with my own; I’m happy to have a good crowd at the table—and have realized that even Grief has something to add to the conversation and doesn’t need to be banished to his room.
And if I ever need a reminder, the soundtrack to our commute to school always comes in handy. “You should see my teacher’s funny dance! Is today early dismissal? I think when I grow up I’m going to drive a helicopter instead of a car. I miss Mama. … Why is he called Dark Vader? Can we go to the park after school?”