We all float on

A boy is on my mind tonight, the son of a man who died in a tragic accident this week. He is the friend of my daughter, someone she feels is special and sweet and silly. I've met him only once and I find myself tonight wishing I knew him better. This, so I could tell him that I remember what this is like, that I understand, that the breadth and depth of emotion racing around in his mind are normal and okay. That he will crumble and cry in one moment, and punch a hole in the wall the next. That he will replay the last week, the last year, the last everything over and over again, asking in frustration why his father wasn't just a minute later or a few seconds earlier that horrible morning, until he sleeps at night. And that his faith will come into play like a clutch three-pointer in the last second of a basketball game.

What I really would like to say is that the pain will go away, but I can't. Because I'm incapable of lying.

All I could tell him is that, as in a foot that's fallen asleep, the numbness will turn to a nagging buzz, then almost insurmountable discomfort...but then he'll be able to walk again without realizing he's gotten up. The good days will come to outnumber the bad, and he will heal. With time, he'll be able to remember without the crushing weight of grief. His family will see his father in him as he grows into a man, shaped by the countless lessons he didn't realize his father had taught him. In this he will find the sweetest of surprises: that anyone loved this much never dies.

In the coming months, he'll want to fall back mindlessly into whatever's behind him. And what is behind him is a safety net of friends, many more than he realizes, more willing than he knows, to catch him. I learned to lean on my friends back then, and their steadfastness was a gift I've never forgotten.

I just wish I could do something to help. Say the right thing. Offer a hug.

Maybe it's just the mother in me.