March, 2009

“Please don’t dance, Mom.”

“Why not?”

“It scares me and makes me sad.”

I walk into his room, and in a too-patronizing, obnoxious sort of voice say, “You know, Martin, it really makes me sad when you take all these clothes out of your bureau drawers and just leave them here on the–”

“You know what makes ME sad?” he interrupts.  “Steve is DEAD!”  He throws himself on the bed and starts to sob.

*****

It was just a beat-up videotape that started it all.  One of Steve Irwin’s very first shows.  Tom had it for years, and one day, popped it in the VCR for Martin, our budding nature adventurer.  And just like that, Steve took over.  Martin learned everything he could about him . . . and the whole Irwin family.  Terri, Baby Bob, Bindi, mom Lynne, dad Bob, and best friend Wes. . .  Australia is the scene of his every imaginary adventure; poachers and enemies of conservation his every imaginary villain.   Hours I have spent outside, pretending that Steve is desperately calling my cell phone to give Martin instructions on rescuing a croc that a poacher has cornered.  Or I’m Steve himself–”Be Steve!  Be Steve!” Martin pleads. And I’m usually Terri in the car, helping Martin and Chris narrate our adventure as we drive through the Australian bush rescuing animals from (of course) the dreaded poachers.

We told him that Steve died when it happened, but he didn’t get it then.  He was too little.  So before he started school, we wanted to make sure he knew that Steve was dead–better he find out from us than from someone else, and it was bound to come up with as much as he talks about Steve.  So, one night at bathtime when Martin asked Tom when we would be going to the Australia Zoo to see Steve, Tom gently explained why that wasn’t going to happen.

And that was just before I flounced into the room with my picky little comment about the stupid clothes on the floor.

So he knows now that Steve is dead.  He asks me every so often who is going to save the animals now that Steve is gone; he says that he, Martin, cannot possibly do it without Steve’s help.  Then he gets tears in his eyes and rubs them really hard because he doesn’t want to cry.