The boy with the golden hair

It can't be my alive boy I buried. Not the one with the golden hair.
Not the one so animated with joy; his delight at the world so infectious.
Not the one who laughs gloriously.
Who careens around the garden, the soles of his bare feet toughened from pigeon-toes running.
But I watched you die. Suddenly so still and quiet.
I watched them try to force life back into you but life didn't want to come back.
I saw you dead, your beautiful blue eyes dulled and sunken. Your child's snub nose sharpened by death. Your lips thinned and purple and your hands, your wonderful expressive hands, awfully stilled.
I held one little hand until it warmed and tucked it back at your side.
But who is this sad little bald dead boy? Yes of course I will bury him if you say he is mine.
Yes, there you see. It was a bald, still dead boy I buried.
Not my alive son with the golden hair.
He must be out there still running, still running around laughing somewhere.
 
Jennifer. Note: this may sound selfish but I'm afraid for me Covid was just background noise compared to the death of my three-year-old son from cancer in March 2020.