There are several things that come to mind from recent days, but mostly it's something that T-Boy said last night. We were watching a film, (one where there is a plane crash and it's a prison plane and Tommy Lee Jones is in it, and it might be called U.S. Marshalls, but it might not lol!) and the plane crashes into a river and flips over. Some of the prisoners cannot escape because they are shackled in to the plane. There is a shot, where there are drowned prisoners hanging upside down in the water. T-Boy said something, then added "And all those ones are asleep and not even aware that the plane has crashed!" and laughed at the surprise that those people would get. We have known for a time that he has no concept of time and how it passes, but now to see and hear that he has no death concept, at 10, is a revelation.
It explains how he can be so unaffected by the films he has seen in the past - Final Destination and all those types. It explains why he doesn't understand when the AC cries for Rich, as he does every now and again. It explains why he doesn't worry about people - in his world, nothing bad happens. There is no future to consider.
Part of me despairs of him ever growing up enough to be a big boy. Already the AC is his match for height almost, and certainly above him academically and emotionally, for all that he is 21 months the younger. The AC has resigned himself to the fact that life is different when T-Boy is here, less free, less independent, because whereas the AC thought he would be getting a bigger brother to lean on a bit, he has what is effectively a younger one, who needs protecting.
On the other hand, part of me envies the T-Boy for the innocence that he has in this regard because I would give the world for the AC not to understand death in the way that he does. Yes, it's made him stronger, and independent and his own person, but at the same time, I would almost wish for the unsullied eyes of my child on his 6th birthday, before it all went so badly wrong.
His eyes are deeper now, are clouded at times with remembered despair. One of my favourite photos of him shows this so perfectly. Although even this photo is 2 summers old now.
No time for maudling thoughts now though. I have things to do, places to go, people to see - and a kitchen to clean lol!
