Aidan Kenneth Bradshaw: A Remembrance
November 23, 1997 - November 11, 2012
We have lost a son, a brother, a grandson, a nephew, a
cousin, a friend, a little buddy, a student, a classmate, a neighbor. Aidan was
all of these things to us, but these words do not even come close to encompassing
what Aidan meant to us. I know that each of you has his own memories of Aidan,
and I will share with you a few of mine.
Aidan would come into our room every night to say goodnight,
hug us, sit in my lap, and tell us he loved us with words and by touching his
nose—our “secret” symbol for “I love you.” He would also sniff us. Then he’d go into his room down the hall. In
five minutes he’d be back to hug us again, sniff us, and tell us he loved us,
touch his nose, and say goodnight. I would be lying if I said I was not
starting to get annoyed when he’d show up a third time for the same ritual:
hug, sniff, say I love you, touch his nose, say goodnight—but he had always
been comforted by routines of love and connection since he was a young child.
On Thanksgiving Day I will be giving thanks for Aidan’s
beautiful life, but I anticipate that at the same time I will be a little, or
maybe a lot, angry at God for taking him; and also I think I might be walking
in a fog of disbelief and not really being able to imagine a world that does
not have Aidan in it.
The next day will be Aidan’s birthday. I found his birthday
wish list on his laptop. He titled it 2012 Birthday Wishlist for Aidan Kenneth
Charles Lief Dirk Jaffar Vector Stephan Bradshaw. That boy loved middle names,
and kept adding them as he came across new names that captured his fancy.
Anyway, his wish list included: Pizza, bass, amp, The Clash
CDs,The Ramones CDs, pizza, old horror films (Frankenstein, Dracula,The
Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc.), a sword, a dagger/stiletto, Black Ops or
Black Ops 2—and then he included this annotation: “The reason these games
appear on the list is because of the zombie game. Not the main game, because I
know you hate shooting real, living people.” The list continued with, again, pizza
(for the third time), Super Street Fighter IV (PS3) and Castlevania Circle of the Moon for Gameboy, Rated T.
He really loved pizza. Every day I’d come home from work and
he’d say, “Hi mom. What’s for dinner? Can we order pizza?” The only food he
knew how to cook was frozen pizza, which he had almost every day for lunch. I’d
ask him, have you had your five servings of fruits and vegetables today? And
he’d say, “Well, I had pizza—that has tomatoes on it.”
When Aidan was very young, Mr. Peevie and I were concerned that
his empathic development was delayed. We knew he was bright in a very
non-traditionally-academic way—and we joked that he would one day grow up to
either cure cancer or be the next Una-Bomber.
As he got older, though, his empathy, sensitivity, and
compassion caught up to and even surpassed his chronological age. He was
super-sensitive to the feelings of the people around him, and literally wept
when he saw kids suffering from teasing or bullying or any type of meanness or
thoughtlessness at the hands of another person, kid or adult. One of the most
heart-warming things I ever heard was when Aidan’s friend GQ told his mom
that he really liked hanging out with Aidan because Aidan was kind to everyone.
Thank you for that, GQ.
Aidan was not just preternaturally compassionate, but he had
an originality quotient that made it seem like he not only marched to the beat
of a different drummer, but he marched as though there was no drummer at all.
Maybe he marched to the beat of a marimba and waxed-paper-and-comb band. His
intelligence had a creativity component that enabled him to think differently
about things than most people think. For example, one Halloween, he was
contemplating his costume choices, looking over the traditional super-hero
options. He picked up a box, cut some narrow slits in it to see through, and
put it over his head. Then he searched the basement for accessories, and he
settled on being Box-Head with Knife.
Aidan did not want the scary responsibilities of growing up.
But at the same time, he had big dreams for what he was going to do as an
adult. His list of career paths included being a pastor, a poet, a song-writer,
a musician, a novelist, and a game designer. He loved God and prayed for all of
us regularly to deepen our relationships with God and love him better. His
tender heart caused him to live in a state of spiritual humility and
repentance. One time in the middle of the night—of course it was the middle of
the night—he was crying and upset because, he said, he did not love God enough,
and God expected more of him.
“What’s this coming from?” I asked him, and he said, “I fell
asleep reading Romans.” I think it’s entirely possible that the Apostle Paul
fell asleep when he was writing the book of Romans, but instead of going down
that road, I opened the Bible to passages that remind us that our weakness is
exactly why we depend on the saving grace of Jesus.
I have one more little story about Aidan from my blog,
called “Warmness, Happiness, and Love”:
A. Peevie, like Peter Pan,
doesn’t want to grow up. He likes the safety and protection and relative ease
of being a child, and he is hyper-aware that growing up means that things get
harder and scarier.
The middle Peevie has already had to deal with many hard and
scary things in his short life: open-heart surgeries, other heart-related
surgical procedures, and multiple hospital stays for various problems. The boy
has seen more "ologists" in nine years than most people see in their
entire lifetime.
As a result of all of these scary things, A.P. has more
anxiety than Woody Allen and more phobias than Adrian Monk. He knows better
than most nine-year-olds that the world is a scary place. A couple of years ago,
he went through a phase when he talked about death and dying all the time. “If
I die, will you still think about me?” he’d ask. Or he’d lay awake for hours at
night because he was afraid if he went to sleep, he wouldn’t wake up in the
morning.
He's doing better now. A. Peevie is comforted by rituals,
such as the hug, kiss smile ritual. Every separation—and I mean EVERY
separation, whether it’s going to bed at night, getting dropped off at school,
or watching me leave for a 20-minute grocery store run—must be preceded by a
hug, a kiss, and a smile. I’m not complaining.
Another comfort ritual is the morning cuddle. A. Peevie made
me a Mother’s Day card, in which he noted that his mom was good at “cuttling,”
he likes it when he and his mom “cuttle,” and his favorite thing to do with his
mom is “cuttle.” What more could a mom want in a Mother’s Day card?
“Why do you like to cuddle?” I asked him this morning. “What
do you get out of it?”
He was thoughtful for a moment, and then he snuggled in
closer to me. “Warmness, happiness, and love,” he said.
I’d like to mention by name just a few of the people who
made Aidan feel safe and loved:
Our friend Lynnie, who practically raised him as one of her
own;
Our friend and Aidan’s “talking doctor” Dr. Gary, who helped
Aidan face and conquer his fears;
Our lovely friend and former manny, Jon, who made dozens of
homemade waffles and modeled Jesus for all of us;
Aidan’s closest buddies from St. Andrews: Ben, Alex,
Nicholas, Gabriel, Brandon, and Raymond; and his science buddy Lorenzo; and our family friends Sam and Eli;
Aidan’s buddies from our neighborhood: Matt, Alex, and
Kevin; plus Colin’s friends who sometimes seem to live in our basement and who
treated Aidan with gentleness and kindness: Nate, David, Sean, and Matthew;
Aidan’s cardiologist, Steve, who not only treated Aidan’s
heart, but also cared for his spirit and helped him live a full, happy life
that was not defined by the scars on his chest; and finally,
Colin and Megan, who as Aidan’s brother and sister grounded
him with normal sibling laughter and bickering, annoyed him and were annoyed by
him, listened to music with him, and played “kapik-kapok” with him (that’s what
Aidan called ping-pong).
We have all been touched by Aidan’s beautiful life. I think
that now that we are sharing the experience of his loss, we should honor
Aidan’s memory by being more like him: more tender-hearted toward people who
are hurting; more gentle; more kind; more silly; and more creative. And we
should definitely eat more pizza.
