Ah, large family dynamics. Everyone’s keeping secrets. And middle kids, with their tendencies toward familial diplomacy, make excellent confidants, carrying the secrets of damn near everyone around them. https://twitter.com/sonnycarisibot/status/1314551189887950849

We’ve seen this a couple of times with Sonny. His sisters tell him the things they can’t bring themselves to tell their parents. Ma told him one of her most painful secrets. I’m not entirely convinced it was because she was afraid of being judged for it, though.

I think it’s possible she thought he was the only person who could handle it. At the time, he was very likely still considering his vocation. He was a devout young man with a lot of wisdom for his age. He’s the kind of person who invites that level of confidence.

I’m not saying there’s no way his dad wouldn’t have said the wrong thing, if he’d known. I’m saying I think it’s possible there are much more complicated emotions at play here. And his mother may have been trying to spare her husband the grief she was feeling.

Sonny, with that “I’ve got a direct line to God” air about him, and that gentle, empathetic heart that invites trust, was always going to be easier to talk to about something awful. He saw her grief. And he bore some of it for her, out of love.

Life doesn’t always wait for us to be “old enough” for the grief it has in store. Sometimes, shit happens, & we learn, at whatever age that may be, what it is to be human: horribly fragile and remarkably resilient. Capable of soaring, wonderful love and crushing waves of despair.

I think that’s why Sonny Carisi is one of my favorite characters on tv. He carries that knowing quality of having truly lived life’s mysteries, felt all the big emotions, pondered the meaning of it all. And it hasn’t made him hard or cynical. He’s still so soft, so good.

(And I know this thread probably runs counter to the accepted discourse around certain things. That’s okay. I’m not suggesting my opinions/HCs are any more authoritative than the prevailing/popular HCs. Just trying to consider all the angles.)