Daily Rounds
Adam Chabot
My four-year-old son, Oscar, doesn’t ask to go on walks anymore. We live on a boarding school campus and it’s where Oscar has spent his entire young life. It’s all he knows.
Months ago, our walks were akin to daily rounds: visit Maria, Bailey or Tammy in Admissions, where Oscar pined for lollipops or played with the stuffed husky (the school mascot) on the window sill; see Sherry or Stacia – “Pizza Paul,” as we called him – in the school kitchen where Oscar would get extra french fries at lunchtime; stroll to my classroom building where, once Oscar could walk, he would dawdle in the lobby as if it was a space just for him, and give enthusiastic high fives to students; or even entertain community members in the dining hall, where, as Oscar got older, he would get brought from table to table, a revolving door of students, faculty, and staff who wanted to engage him. I remember Mr. Bell parading around the building with Oscar sitting on one of his hands, giggling with the bounce of each step.
“God, I miss when mine were this small,” he said.
One of my former students, Greta, once called Oscar “the campus baby.”
I remember watching Oscar wander between tables and chairs with Abby, a senior, who still checks in over FaceTime and who sent him a box of Pokémon figurines (Oscar’s favorite show) for his birthday last month. I remember the time Oscar vomited on James, a three-year student, only for James to apologize to us for “all of the bouncing.” I remember Oscar decorating oversized gingerbread cookies with Ricky, Rohan, Maegan and Kelly—my advisory group who adored him and, apparently, according to Kelly, made Oscar a “Snapchat celebrity.”
I worry that Oscar will forget all of this.
“People are still getting sick.” This is the line my wife, Alyssa, and I use with him.
He gets it. He knows what “sick” means. He’s felt it. But it’s a terrible line. It’s a bad story. There’s no conclusion or reason or anything. The natural story arc is confused.
He no longer fights us about wearing the mask in the grocery store, or not going to visit our “G-Gram” in New Hampshire, or asks why we “have to talk to the people in the computer.” It’s made my life as a parent somewhat simpler, but then what? What if he stops asking?
Do I want him to be sad? Do I want my four-year-old to mourn these losses?
This morning, Oscar sprung to the sandbox in our backyard. He doesn’t have to wear a mask here. He screamed with delight and immediately was at work on some project, some imaginative task powered by nascent passion. It’s hard not to smile. I wish it could always be like this.
Adam Chabot is the English Department Chair at Kents Hill School, a private, independent high school in Kents Hill, Maine where he teaches English and Creative Writing. His work has appeared in The Sandy River Review, 101 Words, and Microfiction Monday Magazine.