“He’s been here before,” my colleague proclaimed as she studied Sean, the biggest and prettiest and most tightly swaddled baby behind the big glass nursery window at Norwalk Hospital on November 28, 1982. For those not raised with such aphorisms, she meant that he was an “old soul.” Sean loved this story and understood what it meant from an early age.

When Sean turned 5 years old, I wrote in my A Tale of Mother’s Days journal, “Sean surprises me with his insight. He is wise beyond his years. Sean does not fight; he is skilled at deflecting and diffusing conflicts with his peers. He includes the kid that others have excluded. He is a ‘kid’s kid’ and can play with anyone. He gets lost in imaginative play for hours. He LOVES fun!! Set him loose and his heart soars, his intensity and worry disappear, he becomes giggly and full of himself. Sean has a huge circle of buddies and is hero-worshipped by younger kids. He speaks to babies and toddlers, softly and eye-to-eye, then communicates their needs to a grown-up. Sometimes, I look in the rear view mirror and see Sean holding his little sister’s hand as she sleeps in her carseat. ‘What’s your family for?’ he gently replies when I thank him. Sean expects a lot of himself. He has always had an inner life that sometimes causes him pain. He thinks a lot. He can be intimidated or angry when he does not succeed at a new task. Finally at age 5, he is loosening up and can sometimes laugh at himself when he is ‘not the worst one’ at something new. His preschool teachers report that he is ‘the most willful child we have ever taught’ and ‘if you can direct that will into something positive, the results will be awesome.’”

The hundreds of stories shared about Sean in the past 25 weeks + 1 day read like my description of Sean at age 5. The force of his character has been consistent. He knew “true north.” His impact has been enormous yet he wielded it one-to-one, moment-to-moment. He practiced kindness, integrity, and loyalty and he shunned rote sentimentality or the muffling that organizations often require.

I think Sean’s friends recognize his old soul when they speak of him as The Mythical Sasquatch, the light we all danced around, the center, the heart. Old souls, too, have lessons to learn and perhaps that is why they have also called him McNAB (“numb as a boot”). Sean explored his inner terrain with less surety than he explored mountains or surf, yet he did so even when fearful. He stumbled, fell, got up and kept walking, maybe even dancing. That is courage. That is grace.

Sean startled me when as a young adult, he said, “Mom, I have learned that I am a speck on this planet.” For him, the potential for sacred, transcendental moments lived side-by-side with the potential for avalanche, an unseen crevasse and a fall. “No one wants to die,” he said, “doing what they love or otherwise. We all want to go home.” His work and play were governed by this perspective. His chosen role was to keep himself and others safe, while pushing forward to experience the magic that only the natural world offers.

Sean’s greatest gift was to see a person, truly see a person and love them for who they are. Death brings an impulse to smooth out the rough and to reframe the up and down nature of kinship and friendship. I honor my Seanboy by continuing to see him, truly see him and to know him, love him and hold him and his old soul.

xoxo Sean’s Mom
(as in “Yo, Sean’s Mom”, as I have been called by hikers, skiers and surfers across the country)