I was going to talk about the science, but this happened.

‘I can’t get sick!’ he wailed through sudden sobs.

‘Why not, buddy?’

‘Because I get died!’

My three year old is terrified that he’s going to die. And this isn’t something that three year olds are supposed to think about or understand. And the fact that he knows what death is and has experienced it firsthand and lost his best friend at such a very little age is painful in a way I can’t describe. I was seven when my dad died and I know how that experience shook me to my core. I’d already experienced death in my family, after losing my grandfather to lung cancer when I was three, but this was different. When my dad died there was a sudden hole in our family. Our everyday lives were different and would be forever, and our home – a place that had always felt warm and safe – felt quiet and unsteady. I became terrified that something would happen to my mom.

My dad died a week before his 35th birthday, when my mom was only 33. When Craig and I were approaching these same birthdays I felt weird about it, knowing how much it affected me to lose someone so close to me at such a young age, and hoping that our kids would never experience that, and wondering how my mom managed to keep us going.

And then, when we were 33 and 34, Jude died. Suddenly, out of nowhere, three feet away from his napping twin brother. Three weeks earlier we’d lost Craig’s 99-year-old grandfather. It wasn’t Isla’s first funeral, but it was the first that she was likely to remember. We sat them all down and talked with them about what it means when someone dies, and that we can’t see them anymore but we can be grateful for the time we had with them and keep loving them and keep remembering them. And we were sad that Grandpa Sam was gone and we would always miss him, but we were happy that Sam got to have such a long, happy life. We talked to them about how we never know how long any of us will be here for, and if we’re lucky we’ll all get as many years as Sam did.

And then Jude died, and there’s no comfort to be found in such an impossibly short life, ended with no explanation or warning. And explaining death to tiny kids suddenly becomes much more complicated because when they’re so little, it’s hard for them to understand ‘forever’, especially when you’re trying to remember to keep breathing. We found ways around it. We talked about how sad we were that Jude was gone so many years earlier than he should have been, and how much we missed him and wished he were still here. And we talked about how we don’t know how many years any of us will get, and that’s why it’s so important to love each other as much as we can in whatever time we have together, and how grateful we were that we’d loved Jude so hard and had so many happy adventures together while he was here. And we talked about how even though he left us far too soon, our love for him will never go away and we can keep talking about him and laughing at the funny things he did and make sure to remember him for the rest of our lives, and if we do that he’ll always be with us. Not the way he should be, but in whatever way we can hold on to him.

 .

For almost four months, before receiving the pathology that told us that Jude had died from influenza B, we had no idea what had happened to him. One suggestion was that there was a ‘rare genetic issue’ that may come up in testing, and then we could test the other kids for it [insert four months of terror here]. But they just didn’t know, and they didn’t know if they’d find an explanation. And that’s a difficult thing to explain to children who have no idea why their brother is suddenly gone. It’s hard to reassure kids that they’re safe and will be safe going to bed when you don’t know why Jude wasn’t safe doing the same thing they’ve done every day.

And then we did get an answer and it wasn’t much better. Jude got sick from something that we’d protected them all against, and it shouldn’t be a big deal except that he was suddenly dead. And the flu, something we all know is no fun to have but all generally consider to be fairly benign, is actually deadly for a lot of people, for thousands of Canadians and tens of thousands of Americans every single year. And we don’t know why it was too much for Jude and not for them or for so many others who get it and get better, but it was.

Before we filled them in on what we’d learned, we talked to a lot of experts to try to understand it better, and got a lot of advice about how to approach the subject with them. We knew they needed to know what had happened, but we also knew we had to handle it as delicately as possible so they wouldn’t think that getting sick means you’re going to die. Most people get sick and get better. Most people get vaccines and don’t get sick from the illnesses they’re protected against, or at least have a much more minor case. Jude is not what happens to everyone, and when kids get an average of six colds a year we didn’t want them to worry every time they started to feel sick, and that had to start with us. We knew that we couldn’t be terrified every time they start sniffling because kids are smart and they’d pick that up from us, and we owe them better than that.

Last week I posted a picture of the kids and someone made a comment that they can’t imagine what all of this is like for them, and that they don’t have many memories from their ages. And I don’t know what to say to that, because I want them to remember every giggle they had with Jude, every mess they made, every fight, every snuggle, every bit of trouble they got into. (Jude was Trouble with a capital T.) And I want those memories to crowd out all of the terrifying emotions that go with being a kid who has suddenly lost someone in their immediate family, because I know what that’s like and I don’t want that for them.

But yesterday Thomas woke up with a runny nose and sobbed because he’s afraid he’ll die.