Last Goodbye

When I was in high school a bunch my friends and I frequently skipped school. Jane, Rob, and myself were particularly close. Jane began dating Rob's older brother and about a year later, they had a baby boy, Peter. While Jane and I grew up and left behind days of skipping school and drinking for University and goals, Rob faltered and seemed to become more and more 'into' drug abuse.

Neither of us hung out with Rob much anymore but I would see him out about town and we would talk about Peter. We laughed about all the things we were going to teach him, all the stories we would tell him, and it was clear that Rob loved his nephew as much as he loved anything. The way his face lit up when he talked about him showed it all.

Peter was a little over a year old when Rob died suddenly, still a young man. Peter was too young to try and explain to that his loving uncle was gone forever, so none of us did. We even refrained from talking about it in front of Peter because he had a habit of mimicking everything he heard at that point.

The night Rob died, Jane slept with Peter in her bed for comfort. In the middle of the night, Jane awoke because Peter had been talking in his sleep. He didn't usually talk in his sleep. The night-light was on and she could see her angelic son, asleep and smiling. "Hi, Wobby" he said clearly, as though he were awake. After a few seconds of silence, his smile falling slightly, he said "Ok.. bye bye Unky Wob" and then he was silent and sleeping normally again.

She told me all this the next day, and despite my logical mind trying to tell me that Peter had heard people talking about Rob and was just rehashing things, in my heart I believed otherwise. I knew that Rob had found a way to explain to his beloved nephew that he wasn't going to see him anymore, but that he loved him and would watch over him.