Are You My Mother?

It was just a typical story on the news. It shouldn’t have been so powerful, especially to those not involved. That is not to say that it wasn’t sad, that it shouldn’t have happened, or any of those things. All I am saying is that we hear about these things that happen a lot on the news and we are almost de-sensitized to the crimes. But this one was different.

The mother, had not returned home from one of her pizza deliveries. After forty-five minutes, the owners of the pizza place, called the police. The mother, with tossled hair and sans make up, looked to be a hard working woman. The type of mother, taking a second job to support her family, and doing whatever she could to support the sons she loved. A search ensued and some time later, her body was found. Her years of hard work had appeared in her face but when her son spoke, I knew what kind of woman she really was. I will never forget the sadness in this young man’s voice.

The story was that this was a mother of four young men; the father had died several years ago and the mother was left to raise her sons. The son, on camera, appeared to be very late teens or a young adult, a tad scruffy looking, as the first new beards of adolescence sometimes are. But what he said, broke my heart and I could not stop thinking about him. He said, “You cannot imagine how difficult it is to be without a mother; you just don’t think about it until they are gone." The sadness and the emotion of this young man broke my heart. Certainly, I understood his grief and his grieving, but imagining the life of these young men, and what was yet to come was disturbing.

The young men, while old enough to maybe live on their own, and much too old to be adopted, still need a mother. Their lives will be forever shattered and they will stumble along with less than opportunities, and less than jobs, because they have no guidance. No one to help them with college admissions, no one to guide them toward the right choices and no one to help them get over the emotional trauma of losing both parents at a young age. These will be broken men and if we are lucky, one or two may be lucky enough to overcome this, but all of them, will never forget.

My mind moved quickly to the holidays. They will bury their mother before Thanksgiving. What will they do on that day? How on earth, will they be able to give thanks? No, they will remember whatever happened last year and the year before, and cry because it will never be the same.

They will try to stay together, or hope to stay together. They don’t know that part yet. Hopefully, a relative will take them in, however the reality is, they will be split apart or rather, go their own way.

Their Christmas will be filled with sorrow. Hopefully, their mother has instilled some religion in them, so they will know a place of peace and hope, during this time of despair. Their wish list at Christmas, will have dwindled from all the normal things young men want, to a list of one: to have their mother back with them again. They will all have the same list and the same wishes, none of which will be fulfilled.