Standing For Sam... I thought that yesterday was the most impossible day of my life. I was deeply mistaken. As the evening breeze blows cool air through my kitchen windows the crematorium has reduced my beautiful, kind and open-hearted son to ashes. I spent the better part of today attempting the impossible as I stood by his mother, the woman who gave me my handsome son, and attempted to in some way ease her uncontrollable grief. I learned a great deal from Sam Bacon over the past twenty years but he saved his most important lesson for me for the very end. When Sam was in middle school I fought with his mother. It wasnt the physical kind of fighting it was the kind that involved lawyers, judges, therapists and hurtful accusations all employed in the mistaken belief that I was fighting for my son. The stress took a great toll on my gentle boy torn between his mother and father at war but still I fought on thinking that the battle was just and worthy. The effects colored Sams smile for his remaining days and I will have to live with that. When I had to make the call to Sams mum yesterday after three years of silence and give her the news every parent dreads I thought about what I would do when she arrived in a tornado of grief and distress. Yesterday was a busy afternoon as Sams mother traveled from Colorado. I was at the medical examiners office, at the funeral home on the phone breaking the hearts of all my family members one at a time and listening to my mother sob over the phone six thousand miles away in an English village realizing that she would never see her grandson again. Despite all of this activity a realization was forming in my mind. Sam loved his mother. He missed her and would do anything to protect her. During the war that I started he didnt speak to me for 18 months because he was so fiercely protective of her. I realized that the best way to honor my son was to Stand For Sam. I would make sure that in his absence I would do what he could not and protect and comfort his mom as best I could. Today I held a woman who years before I had scorned. I offered words of comfort and I gave an open-hearted apology for the pain I had caused her and our son in my misguided efforts to protect him. So that the last lesson my gentle son taught me as he slipped away is that sometimes the most powerful thing to bring to the table is compassion and humility. The horror of spending the day in the presence of my sons body and his mothers grief knowing that when I kissed his soft forehead goodnight it would be for the very last time was dulled slightly by the knowledge that while he is gone there are still lessons he will teach me. Goodnight my sweet mountain town. Your overwhelming support and encouragement is deeply felt.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 04:59:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015