“When Jack got sick, everybody started calling him brave.”
He looked down.
“He hated that so much.”
I knew. God, I knew.
Jack said to me — in a chair, with a line in his arm, in November of 2024 — “Mom, if one more adult tells me how brave I am while they’re putting a needle in me, I am going to become violent.”
Theo said:
“He told me being sick isn’t brave. It’s just something that’s happening to you. He said you don’t get credit for the weather.”
His hands tightened on the podium.
“But I think there was one thing he was actually brave about.”
He looked at us.
“He knew before most of us were willing to know. And he still spent about half his time trying to make everybody else less scared.”
And Then He Explained What the Dress Was Actually For
He touched the red fabric.
