reflecting

Numb with sadness tonight over the death of my son's friend,how this kid was part of a group of kids who were in and out of my house all summer long, on those long bright afternoons so long ago, those days of making all of them cookies and snacks and lemonade to drink. The innocence of those days seems like such a lost, bright thing. I am grateful that I knew to cherish those days then, as I try to do now. I can grieve in a warm house, with food to eat and clean water; so much of the world deals with horrors I cannot even imagine.

I have an impulse tonight to go out and put flowers on the road where they died--a favorite road for me to drive, I might add. I swear, the owls called all night long last night; he died around ten-thirty pm. So hard to say these goodbyes to young people you've known nearly all their lives. It seems horrible to say, but I hope they died instantly, without knowing what was happening to him, without pain.

I will not go out tonight--I can't anyways, because Thistle is asleep--but I can leave flowers at the place where he died, tomorrow. This will be a hard thing for all of us to go through--my family, his family and friends, and this tight-knit community.

So truly hard to say goodbye.