Lucas has different ways he remembers his Daddy. Not long after Mike died, Lucas created many pictures of Mike-- sometimes paintings, usually drawings, and once-- he used play-dough (below). The play-dough sculpture includes a tumour (according to Lucas), which is the green part at the top, with the star. We used to call it Daddy's lump. This is how Lucas processed Mike's illness. Lucas writes little notes, which usually include hearts and the word 'Daddy'. He put the note pictured below on Mike's pillow, in bed. At Christmas, he drew a heart on about ten little pieces of paper, wrapped them up, and put them in Mike's stocking. For a long time, his drawings of our family included his Daddy. Now, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. He used to insist I write down his dreams about his Daddy-- detailed images of them flying planes, riding in trains, and eating pizza!
Lucas knows how much his Daddy would have loved to assemble his Christmas lego with him. He'll say: 'Daddy would have loved this!' with a smile. Or I might say something similar, and then he'd say: 'Yeah!' with a big, knowing grin. And he'll laugh extra hard, hearing a Robert Munsch story about 'the fart that landed on Daddy!' knowing his Daddy would have had a no-lifer listening to that one! (we've recently become audio-book fanatics during long car rides).
I want Lucas to remember all of these loving gestures that eased his grief as a child, including the gleeful laughter when he listened to fart stories!
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