"Take Care of Your Boy"

He sat alone, although a crowd encircled him in the overly-heated room. Many friends and family had come to pay respects, but no one could begin to have words that would comfort, or offer apologies that would alleviate his sorrow.

I tried to picture myself in his place: sitting uncomfortably in the overstuffed chair, staring out the window into the winter landscape, listening to the dull voices of those sharing memories and tearful embraces. I tried to put myself in his place, but the pain was too overwhelming, the grief too heavy for my frame. My God, how can he bear this? How could this have happened?

His son lay in the next room, killed by his best friend, with what was thought to be an unloaded gun.

My son stands in the dimly lit doorway of the funeral home greeting a small group of people who have just arrived. I hear him recite his name to those who have come here be alongside of this family who has lost so much. We are a part of this community, a part of these lives, and together we have come to grieve as one and say goodbye to a friend, a neighbor—a son.

I look at my 15-year old and I see the best in me: I see his unique personality that has developed from his view of the world, and from the unusual experiences he has had moving cross-country (more than a couple of times) and having his folks involved with the arts and ministry. When I look at him, I see the little boy that would make sketchbooks full of sea monsters, the boy that would chase the ocean waves and stare up into the redwoods in wonder. I see the child who would sleep with his toy trucks and build spacecraft with his Lego's and call charlie-horses "horsey-joes." My son, the child who prayed each night for two years that God would provide him the perfect dog, the one who worked beside me to renovate our first house. I see the football player, the joker, the romantic. I see the boy who is fast becoming a man—who told us that he didn't know how he would do today, and asked us to be close. I understood. Less than a year ago we were in the same room as he grieved with a friend who lost his mom. He is holding fast, our eyes meet and he gives me a sign that he is okay.

Being new in our community, I never met this dad before, but I knew that I had to go to him.

Walking over, I offer my hand and sit down. He knows my son and tells me a story about him and his boy, and we both share a smile. This memory brings him joy for a moment, until once again the overbearing reality sets in, that his son is now gone.

“I can’t bear to go into the other room,” he says, “I can’t see my boy like that.”

Turning his head away, he cries, wiping the tears as they flow down the well-worn paths on his face. As I sat there in the silence of his grief, deep down I knew that we shouldn't be here—this should not be happening. We should be at a basketball game or a concert, anywhere else—anywhere but here.

I didn't know what to do, but to just be there. Looking at him, I uttered the only thing I knew to be true, "You will see him again," I said, as my hand fell onto his shoulder.

His eyes were red, and his voice stifled, but he managed to look up and say that this was his hope.

As I got up to leave, his eyes fixed on mine, and he said to me, "Take care of your boy."

I could sense his love for his own son in these words, and knew they would echo in my heart for a long time, because the meaning of his words were: "Take care not to miss even a moment of time you could spend together with your son. Help him know who he is and how proud you are of him. Tell him that you love him.

"I will," I said, keeping his gaze, "I will."