I didn't cry when Cal died. I didn't talk for a while though. At least that's what my mom tells me. I was young, but to me that doesn't feel like much of an excuse. When I broke my finger later on I had wept like a baby, so it didn't make sense to many people that I didn't cry when my own brother died. At one point, my father, drowned in several glasses of sorry-for-himself Pinot Noir pointed his finger accusingly at me, grabbed my collar and shook me hard.
"DID YOU EVEN LOVE HIM?" He shouted at me. I remember staring blankly into his grief stricken eyes coldly and calculatingly, and simply saying; "Yes, did you?"

I don't remember even being sad when he died either, just empty. Cal had told me what he was going to do, so the surprise that all the adults felt over his death wasn't part of the medley of emotions inside of me afterwards. Many questions had surfaced about Cal's death, but years later, the most prominent question that I asked about Cal's death was; "why?"

Some people say since I was only a little boy when Cal died, I couldn't even know him enough to cry. At least that's what my mother said in my defense. It didn't seem like a defense though. When she said that, I wanted to scream and pull her hair out. I wanted to tell her the truth, that I knew Cal better than any other human being on this earth. It didn't matter how old I was when he died. I could have told my parents that they never really understood Cal, that it was probably their fault that he was dead. I didn't though.

As you can see, I didn't do a lot of things.


In one episode of uncanny clarity, when I was only three years of age, I remember Cal talking to me. He woke me up one night, standing in the doorway of my room like a ghost. I had just moved into my own bed, and wasn't confined by the bars of my crib anymore. However young I was, I remember that night more clearly than any other moment in my life. He stood there, his blue baggy t-shirt hung down way too far, and his Christmas tree dotted pajama bottoms were a little too short. He watched me as I made my way methodically down from my small cot across to where he was. I had donned the clumsy half-walk half-crawl that is typical for a kid of my age, but my mother told me later on that when I did it I focused so hard to coordinate my arms, legs, and whatnot, that I ended up looking like a semi-professional power walker.

Cal was to go off to camp the next day. It was a 3 week sleep-away camp he had been going to for 7 years, starting when he was 9. He never talked much about it, and my parents never seemed to know much about it either, given that Cal liked to keep a shroud of mystery around most parts of his life.

Cal turned on his heel and walked down the hallway, clearly expecting me to follow him. He took me to the playroom, where he had built me a fort just the day before. He took a flashlight a shined it into the mess of cushions and blankets, gesturing for me to climb in. The flash light went out for a little while, and for a moment all I was left with was the chirping of the summer bullfrogs, and the steady hum of the cicadas that usually passed unnoticed. I could smell the lavender fabric softener my mother like to use on the blankets all around me. It was so overwhelming it almost made me sick to my stomach. I began to panic for a moment, scared that the darkness had swallowed my brother whole. Then the flashlight turned back on and to my surprise he was right next to me.


He placed the flashlight facing up at the side of the fort, so we could just make out each other's faces.

"They don't understand me. No one does, Jimmy." He was speaking with desperate urgency. His words were hanging on the humid electricity of the summer night that had somehow seeped through the invulnerable walls of our home and into the fort. Cal calmly extended his arm and placed his hand on my shoulder. "Do you understand me, Jimmy?" I wanted to move my lips, to say something that showed him that I understood. But my clumsy three year old tongue sat immobile in my mouth, glued down hopelessly. Cal looked down at me with silent sadness and longing, his green eyes were swirling. I had wondered what was behind those strange green eyes for most of the time I knew him, yet now they had been turned inside out. Every single emotion, every thought Cal had was reflected in the two small pinpoints of concentrated ocean.

"I think-" His voice trailed off, and his eyes became set on the source of light in the corner. The green in Cal's eyes was loosing it's intensity, a film was forming over them.

"I'm going to have to go away for a long time." Cal said quietly. "Not just for camp." he added, as if he didn't really want me to hear that he said the last part.

Then he knelt down and handed me a crumpled piece of paper. The kind that you can see through it's so thin. The kind that is so fragile and delicate it can be blown away in a small gust of wind, torn with a single false pen stroke.
"Give this to mommy and daddy, ok? Give it to them after-" His voice caught. "I'm gone." He finished shakily, closing my chubby fingers around the paper. I nodded vigorously, only partially understanding what I was supposed to do and what he meant.

Gone? Where was he going? Even I could tell he didn't just mean camp. Cal's eyes were swirling now, the film over them had broken.

When I looked up at Cal again his swirling eyes were starting to shed small shiny teardrops.

My lips could form words now. "Calvie!" I babbled. I had been a late talker, not once when Cal lived was I able to put a full sentence together. Simply saying his name was a big step for me at the time, and one that I felt proud of. I do like to say I was more of an observer though. That's why I remember so much about Cal.

I tried to reach up to his face, so far above, to wipe off the tears, too far for my stubby arms to reach. They were like the raindrops that ran down the window during a storm. I would always try to wipe them off the window, but I couldn't. They were on the other side of the glass; separated by a thin barrier of hope, and a thick divider of helplessness. The water would stream down the window pane, unswayed by the pounding of my tiny fists.

Cal gently took my arms and moved them back down to my sides, letting them rest in their natural position.

"Shhhh," Calvin said. "We don't want to wake up mommy and daddy, do we?"

I don't remember what else Cal told me in between, only what he told me last.



"Jimmy you have to promise me something," He paused. "You can't get mad at me because of this."

He was looking away from me now, but I could still tell he was crying, and the storm was still n his eyes, only a little calmer.

"Promise me, Jimmy."

He didn't say it in a threatening way, but rather, urgently. I stuck out my hand and put it on his back, the only thing I could do at the moment to let him know I promised. The mystifying letters on the back of his shirt had a textured feel to them, like sandpaper. It made a shiver run down my spine.

Calvin turned and I saw his face, the dim light of the flashlight seemed to make it glow. It was the last time I saw it. His square jaw set, green eyes furiously searching my own, oak colored hair plastered to his forehead and his complexion red with an indecisive mix of emotions. His face softened a little and he mustered a smile. Then he nodded, stood up, took the flashlight, and left me in the darkness of the fort.

I slept there that night. Surrounded by familiar sounds of lavender fabric softener and Cal.


Cal left for camp before I woke up the next morning. He left for camp before I even had a chance to say goodbye. I should have cried then. I should have cried when he told me. But I didn't. I didn't cry then or ever and I could never explain why.

Grief does not always need tears to validate it. Grief doesn't only sweep through older people, but empties the hearts of the young too.

No one ever seemed to understand this about me; that I felt grief at such a young age, and it emptied my heart. Grief emptied my heart, and did not give me tears to cry. Instead it gave me a curse. It gave me the curse of being accused of not loving someone I loved.

Grief doesn't need a label, grief doesn't need an age. Grief just is.


Cal would understand.