Constant Questions

"Why does Uncle Billy smoke?"
"Why did a tornado come through downtown?"
"Why do you have a meeting?"
"What would happen if I shot the neighbor?"
"What would happen if I sawed off someone's foot?"

Jack asks questions.  Over and over.  He'll ask the same question repeatedly and with variations.  He's very good at formulating questions.  Most of the time, it sounds like he wants the facts.

"Why did a tornado come through our city?"
"What makes tornadoes?"

I could give him the facts all day.  Warm air, cold air, cumulonimbus cloud, or however you say that.  But the questions would still come.

Jack: Why did a tornado happen?
Me: Well, tornadoes don't usually come through downtown, but the weather at the time was, um, right for making the, um, warm air meet the cold air, and, um, a funnel cloud formed.

Minutes later.

Jack: Why did a tornado come through downtown?

We haven't experienced a tornado, but he just learned about them.  The idea of a tornado is so frightening that it kept him awake all night, all NIGHT, the day we first read about them.  Stupid books.

At night, the full terror of what might happen plays out in his dreams.  During the day, he masks his fear in questions.  Sometimes, he even laughs while he asks the question.  It almost seems like a game.

Jack, giggling: "What would happen if I shot the neighbor?"

He's asked questions like this for years.  I used to think "That's a terrible thought! Is my child growing up to be a serial killer?  What does this mean?"

But this question is not about shooting the neighbor.  It's not a factual need.  It's not about funny.  It's an emotional need. A need to have a safe place and person to release his fears with, to talk through scary ideas, to find reassurance, to find a way to keep living and to keep experiencing joy, even with all the sorrows in the world.

His "shoot the neighbor" question is about the disturbing idea that a gun, this thing someone, anyone, can hold and use, can kill.  The idea that we don't just die of old age, peacefully.  That someone else can cause a death.  That it's possible not just to wish someone dead, but actually make it happen.  That death is permanent and can be violent.  That someone we're close to could kill us.  Or a stranger.  At any time. 

His "shoot the neighbor" question is really about the deepest philosophical puzzles of life.  How can bad things happen to good people?  How is it that someone can die young?  How can we go on living with all the bad things that can happen?

It's just that Jack can't articulate those fears yet.  He can only scratch the surface in his attempt to frame the questions.

When I finally realized the emotional need behind the question, when I finally treated it as the bigger philosophical question that it was, then he could open the door to his fears, let them tumble out, and not be locked alone with them.

Jack, laughing: What would happen if I shot the neighbor?
Me: I wonder if it's scary to think about someone being able to kill you.
Jack, quietly, somberly: Yes.

I paused.

Jack: I want to live to be a hundred.

And then we talked about the real fears.  Of dying.  Of people we love dying.  Of what it's like to lose people we love, pets we love, then to go on with living.

That's when Jack taught me to look deeply into the questions and untangle the real emotions behind them.

It's easier to react to the surface.  "Genuine response," my wise friend Heather Baird, said to me, "requires a whole lot more effort."   My child constantly challenges me to respond genuinely, to look beyond the surface of his questions, the surface of his constant motion, the surface of his laughing good nature, the surface of his expressionless face and into his emotions.  His fears are no less valid because they're disguised as questions.  His emotions are no less real because he hides them. 

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