Sometimes they are too tired.
Sometimes all they want is someone to sit quietly beside them.
Wade has learned to accept every one of those answers.
He has also learned to take care of himself.
On the anniversary of Lily's death, he sometimes chooses to spend the day remembering her privately. When he needs rest, he takes it. And when grief feels especially heavy, he speaks with people he trusts instead of disappearing without explanation.
He tells me that Lily taught him how to love a child.
And Eli taught him that loving another child didn't mean leaving her behind.
I think both of those things are true.
But I also think Wade taught my son something that no hospital treatment could teach.
He taught him that kindness doesn't always arrive looking the way you expect.
Sometimes it wears a faded leather vest.
Sometimes it has tattoos covering both arms.
Sometimes it has a beard that makes a little boy ask whether a giant has wandered into his room.
And sometimes it sits on a hospital floor at ten o'clock in the morning, pushing a blue toy car toward a child who is too tired to get out of bed.
I still remember the first day I saw Wade.
I remember feeling uncertain about the enormous stranger beside my son's bed.
I remember watching Eli laugh for the first time in days.
And I remember wondering why a man with his own life and responsibilities would give so much time to a child who wasn't his.
Now I know.
He was a father who had lost his daughter.
A father who had spent years carrying a little red car because it was one of the few things he could still hold when he missed her.
A father who discovered that he couldn't change the ending of Lily's story, but he could carry her love into someone else's.
For a year, he showed up.
Then he showed up again.
And again.
Not because he knew Eli would survive.
Not because he expected gratitude.
Not because helping another child could bring Lily back.
He came because the little boy waiting in that hospital bed deserved something to look forward to.
And sometimes, when you've already lost someone you love more than life itself, the most courageous thing you can do is allow yourself to love again without knowing what tomorrow will bring.
The little red car still travels in Wade's vest pocket.
He keeps it wrapped in a soft piece of cloth, just as he did when I first saw him holding it in the hospital courtyard.