I don't remember the exact words that spilled tearfully from my mouth when I told my young son that his Grandmother had passed away. I'm sure they were awkward and inadequate, as anyone who has ever struggled to explain the inexplicable to a child can attest. All that I do recall was that we were both crying, and we held each other for a long time, I extracting comfort from his embrace rather than the other way around.

We trudged through the next few weeks hand in hand with our grief. We celebrated his fourth birthday with tear-stained cheeks and pasted on smiles. Food was consumed and laundry was done, and life went on with a big hole in it.

It was some months later when my son was to unwittingly give me the memory that would comfort me for a lifetime.

On a fresh spring morning, I was watching him play out of an open window, a strong breeze blowing through the mesh screen. He was sitting in the grass with his face upturned to drink the wind full force. His eyes were closed, but his lips worked in animated movements. It was only then I heard him talking; conversing really, to someone I couldn't see.

I walked outside gingerly, suddenly feeling a chill that didn't come from the morning air.

“Stevie, who are you talking to?” I asked.

It was a moment before he opened his eyes and replied in an incredulous tone that warned I was asking a silly question.

“Grandma.”

I wasn't sure what path this conversation was taking, and I was somewhat frightened of the answer to my next question.

“Do you see Grandma?”

Again, the look of exasperation appeared when we adults fail to understand the simple wisdom if our children.

“No, I don't have to see her to know she's here. I always talk to her. She answers me with the wind.”

A sudden gust whirled around us; wind fingers lifting my hair on end punctuating his point.

My son resumed his play as if nothing absolutely extraordinary had just happened; as if he had not just recited enlightened poetry that had been beyond my grasp for so long. With his powerful words unencumbered by adult logic and limits, a piece of my grief melted away. At that perfect moment, I was reminded that just as we never stop teaching our children, they never stop teaching us.

As the air stirred deliberately around me, I felt the weight of missing and longing for my mother dance away with the sweet, warm breath of an angel.

©2004 Tracey Henry