Hornblared

We sat on the floor in front of the refrigerator, little plastic animal magnets spread across its surface. Three-year-old Blondilocks sat on my lap as, one by one, his dad or I pointed to each animal and our boy proudly called its name. Camel! Tiger! Elephant! Rhinoceros! Lion! Hornblared! Snake!

Wait…what?

The shaggy animal with broad shoulders and wide-spread horns was most assuredly a yak. It was a name that presumably my wide-eyed munchkin had not yet encountered. But yet, neither did he call it by the name of another animal it resembled or simply advise us, “I don’t know.” No, not he. Without missing a beat, he pronounced it hornblared. And so hornblared it is to this day in our family vernacular. We know neither the why nor the wherefore. We—the Padawans of our child’s master language—simply accept.

Every family or friendship has its own lingual subset—an offshoot of the common language, spoken by just a few in the know. These bits of language, together with family stories, jokes, and “remember whens,” are a culture of their own. Our family culture.

Homemades. Lucky Crumbs. Teacher Spice. Bed church. Four dollars. Happycakes. Don’t be evil. These are a sampling of the words and phrases particular to our little tribe. The thing is, most of them are known to just three of our four. Our youngest arrived more than fifteen years after his big brother, and so many of the words and stories came before his time. Happycakes is his; so is Ikey, the name he gave his brother. The rest belong to the family-that-was before he arrived. And with Blondilocks’ passing, there remain only two who speak the native tongue. One day, we know, there will be just one of us left….like the last of a dwindling tribe on an isolated island, the carefully crafted culture of days gone by fading away to silence.

My boy was my best friend…my sidekick. If soulmates exist, he is mine. I love my husband, my youngest, my family of origin, my friends…but life with my eldest—the boy who made me a mom—was easy. I got him; he got me. Our language, our culture, our story were deep and strong and funny and moving and filled with love. I miss so many things about my kid, but it may be talking with him that I miss most of all. I miss our shared language. I miss the mind that came up with hornblared, emphatically and without hesitation. I miss how he always knew exactly what to say. I miss…

…the truth is, I have no words.