I Give You Permission to Cry Over This Video Game

You’ve probably never played a game like That Dragon, Cancer. In fact, it definitely feels denigrating to call it a “game.” It’s really difficult to explain That Dragon, Cancer. The game was made by Ryan and Amy Green, and it was a project that began while their son Joel was going through cancer treatments. You can read about their story in many places (I hope you will do so), and there is even a documentary airing on PBS later this year about their family’s journey.

A few things you might be interested to know is that the Greens are Christians, and as you move through the game you play games with little Joel, you experience beautiful moments of light, but you also share in their hurt, in their fear, and their fight for faith and hope in God in the midst of hopelessness. The game portrays in a very authentic way the prayers and fears of very real human beings. There are no caricatures here. There are no stereotypes here. This is a game about real Christian people going through a real experience, and you are there with them almost every step of the way. In that sense, this game is almost an empathy simulator.

I am usually a stoic. My wife has probably seen me cry only a handful of times in 15 years of marriage. This game gave me my first real cry (very cathartic) in a long, long time. It happened sporadically throughout the whole game, but it really happened near the end of the game. Most of the time you believe this is a game about Ryan and Amy, about their grief and pain. But somewhere near the end, after Joel’s death there is this scene that they call “Picnic at the Edge of the World” and there is this moment where little Joel is sitting in the bow of the row boat, approaching the other shore, staring expectantly. The boat moves slowly. The stars are shining down and reflecting off of the water. You sit behind him in the boat and you see his little legs tucked under him as he stares at the other shore in anticipation. It is an utterly transcendent moment. It is something I have imagined for myself since I was a teenager who began to contemplate the reality that I too would someday die, pass from this realm into the next. And yet in this moment in the game, you realize this really is not the story of Ryan or Amy. No, this is Joel’s story. This is Joel’s journey. And the story has always been about his short journey in this life. A journey that was troubled and painful nearly from the very beginning.

It’s in this moment with Joel in the bow of the boat that I stopped for a moment thinking about Joel. I was suddenly thinking of my own two little ones, Titus and Tish. We lost them years ago, and if they were alive today they would be over a decade old now. A twin boy and girl. Sometimes I can see them running, holding hands, and playing. They’re there, but I can’t see their faces. I have to imagine it. But in this instance I was reminded that they had taken the same journey Joel was taking — two covenant children, beloved by believing parents, known for so short a time in this life, now watching from the other side, expectant, with an enlarged capacity for joy and made holy by the God who knit them together in their mother’s womb. Awaiting Mom and Dad’s arrival. I was struck with a sense that I will be there with them some day. As David said of his own child after the Lord took him, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sam 12:23).

But not yet. And here I am now, crying, wiping away tears, not at all feeling silly for crying at a video game. For me, That Dragon, Cancer was less of a video game and more of a transcendent reminder that death is coming for all of us, and overjoyed to know that Christ has given us full entree to think of That Dragon as a toothless, ultimately defanged enemy.