~from Ami

Beware the Ides of March.
I've just returned from a funeral, the father of my son's best friend. It was the longest memorial service I've ever been to, clocking in at two hours, as person after person took the mike to tell the crowd what kind of man John Rowe was.

My son, in his dad's yellow tie and his own multi-purpose black suit, all seriousness as he brought in more folding chairs to set up at the back of the church and along the aisles, sits in the front row with a group of boys ages 16-21, all there as a silent witness to the impact their friend's dad had on their lives.

The Ides of March would do well to beware of me, for I've found myself very angry over the death of this man. Why take him? Why? In the back row of the church, I pray for comfort for the family, and I search but find none for myself. I find none for my son. What words can I use to explain the why to him, when God won't tell me why?

I begin thinking of my son and the ways I have tried to protect him. By his age, I was already torn down, unraveled, broken. All because of the immature antics and verbal sparring and emotional torture of bitterly divorced parents. I've made sure Zack's life has been easy and- dare I admit it- frivolous. The problems we've had he has not known about, and maybe I've done him a disservice to shield him this way.

You don't want your own child to know pain. You don't even want them acquainted.

But as I watch from the back of the church, a worn Kleenex falling to damp shreds in my fist, I see Zack get up and take the microphone- the first kid in a long lineup of adults to speak out to this, a packed Methodist church on a cold and drizzly day in March. And, though his eyes are red, he speaks clearly and assuredly into the microphone. He tells the mourners that John Rowe inspired him to pick up the guitar, which he's recently begun to learn. He tells us the privilege he feels for having known this man for three years. He says John is looking down on us with the same smile he's got in the picture on the altar.

And there, with his braces flashing under the lights, ill at ease in a starchy black suit, I see my son's true self begin to emerge, and I realize it is layer upon layer. I see him reaching beyond his safety zone to comfort a sad family, I see him, at almost seventeen, learning how to grieve.