After the graduation celebration, Daniel and I began thinking about what we wanted to give Theo.
We didn't want to buy him something expensive.
He had worked hard for his degree, and we were proud of him, but money wasn't what we wanted the gift to mean.
We wanted to give him something that connected him to Jack.
Something he could keep without feeling that he had to display it or explain it.
One evening, I opened the drawer where we had stored some of Jack's belongings.
I had been through it several times since his death.
Each time, I found something that made me stop.
A school photograph.
A small notebook.
A receipt for something he had bought and forgotten about.
The objects were ordinary.
That was what made them difficult.
They belonged to a boy who had expected to keep using them.
Near the back of the drawer was Jack's black wristwatch.
It wasn't an expensive watch.
The strap had become worn, and the face showed small marks from everyday use.
Jack had worn it almost every day before his illness.
I picked it up and turned it over in my hand.
Daniel came into the room.
"What have you got there?"
I showed him.
He sat beside me.
"His watch."
I nodded.
For a while, we looked at it together.
Then I said what I had been thinking.
"I want Theo to have it."
Daniel didn't answer immediately.
He took the watch and examined the strap.
"Are you sure?"
I nodded.
"I think Jack would have wanted him to have something."
Daniel looked at me.
"Something of Jack's?"
"Yes."
He turned the watch over once more.
"Then I agree."
We placed it in a small box and put the box in a drawer until we could give it to Theo.
I didn't tell him about it beforehand.
I wanted the gift to be a surprise.
When the day came, we invited him over.
He arrived in the afternoon and found us waiting in the living room.
He looked between us.
"Why do you both look so serious?"
Daniel smiled.
"We're not serious."
Theo narrowed his eyes.
"That's exactly what serious people say."
I laughed.
"Sit down."
He did.
I brought out the small box and placed it in his hands.
He looked at it.
"What's this?"
"Something we want you to have."
He opened it carefully.
When he saw the watch, his expression changed.
He didn't move for several seconds.
Then he looked at me.
"No."
I smiled sadly.
"Yes."
"I can't take this."
"You can."
He lifted the watch from the box.
His thumb moved over the worn strap.
"I remember this."
"I know."
"Jack wore it all the time."
Daniel nodded.
"He did."
Theo looked down again.
"I can't take something like this from you."
I leaned forward.
"We want you to have it."
He shook his head.
"It's yours."
"It belonged to Jack," I said. "And Jack was your best friend."
Theo's eyes filled.
He looked as though he wanted to argue, but couldn't find the words.
I reached for his hand and gently closed his fingers around the watch.
"Keep it."
He lowered his head.
For a moment, none of us spoke.
Then Theo began to cry.
Not loudly.
He tried to stop himself, wiping his face with his sleeve.
I moved closer and put my arms around him.
Daniel joined us.
We stood together in the living room, holding a young man who had become part of our family long before any of us understood how much grief we would share.
Theo held the watch carefully between his fingers.
"I miss him so much."
I closed my eyes.
"So do I."
He took a shaky breath.
"I keep thinking there should've been more time."
"There should have been."
I didn't try to tell him otherwise.
There was no reason to pretend the loss had become fair simply because years had passed.
Jack had been eighteen.
He had been funny, stubborn, and full of plans.
He had wanted to travel.
He had wanted to go to college.
He had wanted to watch terrible movies with Theo and argue about them afterward.
He had wanted to live.
Nothing about the watch changed that.
Nothing about it made his death easier to accept.
But it gave us a way to remember him without trying to turn him into someone he had never been.
Theo pulled away slightly.
He looked at the watch again.
"I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything," Daniel told him.
Theo nodded.
Then he closed the box.
He held it in both hands as though it might break if he moved too quickly.
We sat together for a while.
Eventually, Theo began telling us about a professor who had once mistaken him for another student.
The story was ordinary and a little ridiculous.
Daniel laughed.
I laughed too.
Theo looked relieved.
The watch rested on the table between us.
I realized then that giving him Jack's watch had not meant giving away our son.
It hadn't made the memories smaller.
It hadn't taken anything from our home that we needed in order to keep loving Jack.
Instead, it had allowed something that belonged to Jack to continue being part of someone's everyday life.
I wanted that.
I wanted Theo to wear the watch if he wished.
I wanted him to remember Jack without feeling that every memory had to be painful.
And I wanted him to know that our family still had room for him.
Not as a replacement for our son.
Not as someone who owed us anything because he had been Jack's friend.
As Theo.
The boy who had grown up four houses away.
The teenager who had sat beside Jack's bed.
The young man who had kept a promise when it would have been easier to stay home.
The friend who had worn red because Jack had asked him to.
Later that afternoon, Theo stood to leave.
He slipped the watch into his pocket, then stopped at the doorway.
"Thank you."
I shook my head.
"You've thanked us enough."
He smiled.
"I mean it."
"So do we."
He looked at Daniel.
Then he looked at me.
"I'll take care of it."
I nodded.
"I know you will."
After he left, I returned to the living room.
The small box was still on the table.
I picked it up and put it away.
For a moment, I felt the familiar ache of missing Jack.
Then I remembered Theo's face when he opened the box.
I remembered how carefully he had held the watch.
I remembered that he had cried, but he had also laughed before he left.
Grief had not disappeared.
It had made room for something else.
That was becoming a pattern in our lives.
We could miss Jack and still enjoy dinner.
We could cry over a photograph and then laugh about a terrible movie.
We could give away something he had owned and still feel that he was part of our family.
Love did not require us to keep every object forever.
Sometimes it meant allowing a memory to travel with someone else.
Click here to continue reading: PART 12: Years Later, I Finally Understood That the Red Dress Was Never the Strange Part of Jack’s Funeral, but the Moment We Forgot to Ask Why
I Thought My Son’s Best Friend Had Chosen the Worst Possible Day to Make Himself the Center of Attention
Part 11 of 12
