The Boy With the Pink Big Wheel
My son Max, who just turned 5, has a pink big wheel. You know what a big wheel is, right? It's basically a cool looking tricycle...one "big wheel" in the front, two chunky fat wheels in the back. In the 1970's, when I was growing up, there was even a commercial for a big wheel showing it taking a monster turn and spinning out. Often these big wheels, even those of today's generation, have some loose affiliation with a popular movie or television character appealing to boys, such as Spider Man.
But not Max's big wheel. Max's pink big wheel, the bike he loves to ride, is pink and purple and decorated with Barbie images and has a vanity license plate that reads: "LYDIA". You see, Max likes to ride this bike, not because it's a cool bike, or because his favorite color is pink, but because it belonged to his sister.
Lydia, Max's sister and our daughter, died a year and a half ago at age 5, from Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a pernicious and deadly form of leukemia that is particularly difficult to treat. Lydia's leukemia and her journey with cancer took all of us, including Max, on a path we never wanted to take. Lydia was adopted from Guangdong Province China at age 1. Her brother Max, adopted from S. Korea, came along nearly 2 years later. We were a happy family of four. In August 2008, Lydia came down with a persistent illness that appeared to be tonsillitis but which turned out to be leukemia. Along our cancer journey, we found Lydia's birthparents and siblings in China in order that Lydia might have a life-sustaining bone marrow transplant; we learned that the family wanted to extort us for her sister's life-giving marrow, and we lost Lydia to the disease, all in the space of six months. By February 2009, she was gone.
And Max was left. Max was left without his best friend, his sister. The one who watched out for him; the one who was the leader; the one who showed him the way and always showed him tender loving care. Max has struggled to move on, to understand death, and to find a way to have his sister a part of his life and his heart despite the cold-hard reality that she is physically gone.
At preschool this year, Max decided that on picture day he wanted Lydia to be part of his photo. And so in order to incorporate her into the photo, Max decided to don Hello Kitty socks that once belonged to Lydia. We will forever remember that Lydia was in his heart, as we view that precious photo years from now.
In a recent walk around the neighbor which included passing by the funeral home where Lydia's calling hours were held, Max asked me: "That's where Lydia died, right?". And I said: "No, that is where she was taken after she died." And Max said: "Lydia's like a mummy, right?...she is buried in a box, but she doesn't have all the wrappings around her." I thought for a minute, thinking about how to answer this. What Max said was technically correct...BUT given that Max has seen many mummies "on display" at the British Museum in London, I didn't want to answer yes, with no further explanation. And so I explained, as I often find myself doing, about how Lydia's body is at the grave we visit, but her spirit is elsewhere. She is an angel in heaven, always watching over him, I say. This seems to be enough for the moment, but the strangeness of death, faith, and heaven to a five year old must be overwhelmingly complex...it's hard enough for me at 38!
When a sibling dies, and a young little person like Max is left, the idea of grief and the process of grieving becomes more complex. Max was fortunate to participate in a wonderful program at Akron Children's Hospital called "Good Mourning". The program was a parent/child series of meetings, in which the child worked on age appropriate activities to assist him/her in working through the grieving process. Despite the progress Max made through this program, I have come to realize that as hard as it is for me to accept I have to live the entire rest of my life without Lydia, so does Max. Max's life will forever be shaped by the loss and questioning he experienced at such a tender age.
And so tonight, Max is asleep in his room. He has a night light that is an Angel next to his bed, and as he himself told me, that Angel needs to SHINE. Max: Angel Lydia is always shining down on you, and she will always light your way.
copyright Monica L. Miyashita, Esq. June 8, 2010
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