20/20 twelve, I wonder...

I can pinpoint a half dozen of these moments of total pause: setting foot inside a home a mother left and never returned to, picking up a book a patient left on the bedside meaning to read during recovery, a pizza in the oven, finding the shoes ready to go behind a door... all of these people had intentions which didn’t involve dying.  They didn’t mean to be dead.  Someone dresses in the morning and leaves for work but they never come home…

A few hours after BC returned from work on Friday we got a phone call from a 17 year old boy.  He is the older brother of my step son’s 14 yr old best friend.  He was calling to let BC know their dad was dead.  And the world stops spinning, it takes a breath.  It breaks my heart that a 17 year old had to make that call.   And even though in the scheme of things our contact with these boys is micro I truly believe BC has been an anchor to them.  You might never know when your actions or words are lifelines to those around you, even to those you may not see so clearly.

Their dad was an alcoholic, their mom at best is MIA, I don't know the whole story but she is somehow a threat to the boys who have lived in fear of her 'finding' them.  They live in a trailer located beside the welding shop on the edge of a broken down river in the middle of an industrial area of the west side.  It seems impossible, like a horrible error, don't know you can't leave children all alone?  Wasn't their life hard enough as it was?

All we know right now is he wasn't feel well and went to lay down 2 hours later workers at the welding shop went to check on him and he was dead.  Did he know he was about to die?  Was there a moment when he realized he would never see his boys again?  What do the dead know about the living they leave behind?  How does one know how to die? 

Twelve hours, is what goes through my mind, half a day.  On my run down the path snaking along that broken river I can see the trailer & the welding yard.  How did he live his last twelve hours?  If you knew that was all you had left what would you do with them....?