You and Me

"I was you in a previous life," Hunter said--casually, matter-of-factly, even incidentally as he stacked the Lego blocks. I blew it off, and we finished the Lego truck.

"Why do we have to build?" he asked.

"We don't," I answered. "But it's how we live. We keep making things better and bigger."

"Oh," he replied. Five-year-olds typically accept the first answer that is delivered in a serious tone of good faith.

I went to the kitchen to help with the dishes when she, just as casually, said, "Hunter said he was you in a previous life."

"I know," I said. "He told me that, too."

"You don't find that weird?"

"He's five. File it away with the unicorns he's obsessed with."

"I suppose," she said, "but, still, it's strange. How he knows things."

"Like what?"

"Like how you used to sell Cutco knives in college, before you met me."

"That is strange. Anything else?"

"Yea, plenty."

"Really?"

"How your mother was killed by a drunk driver; how you had a drug problem that got you fired from your first job. Things like that."

"Wow. Weird. He probably just heard us talking."

"I don't think so. I don't think he heard us talking about how I had to prop up my pelvis after sex because that's what the doctor said. And it worked, and we had him."

"Now you're scaring me."

"I think most parents have stories like this, don't they?" she asked.

"No. Not like this," I replied. I was scared.

Hunter was watching Paw Patrol in the other room. I called him into the kitchen, and he came running. We had forgotten his ice cream and he must have figured on that. My wife handed him his treat.

"Hunter," I said. "You were me?"

"Yea," he said.

"Before?"

"Before I was born, but now, too."

"You must mean someone from a long time ago," my wife clarified.

"No," he said, "from right now."

"I don't get it," I admitted. "How can that be? I'm here now, and you say you lived a previous life?"

"Yes, Daddy; I was you."

"How long were you me?"

"Till you died," he answered.

"When was that?" I asked.

"Not for a while," Hunter replied. "Not till September 5, 2042."

We were both dumbstruck.

"But don't worry, Daddy," he answered. You'll just be me. Bigger and better? It's how we live, right?"