Yesterday was a really tough day

My younger son is the most amazing person. His best friend from temple moved to Texas 2 weeks ago. Yesterday I checked my email first thing in the morning from work, and it turned out that this friend's father had passed away and the funeral was yesterday. The family was returning to our town to bury him (he grew up in So Cal). The temple had sent out a notice the day before, but I had been too busy at work to check my Yahoo email account on Wednesday. I freaked out. And immediately left work to go wake Steve up and take him to the funeral. I figured that at their age, there likely wouldn't be many friends there to support this child. I was right. From what I could tell while we were there, my son was it.

As I said, I woke him up, and told him the news. He got very quiet, but got up without complaint, got dressed in his nice clothes, ate, brushed his teeth, and was ready to go in about a half hour. (He looked really cute in his suit pant, nice shirt, camo belt and pukas, LOL!)

When I say this was an all day event, I mean all day. The service was at 11:30. Then the interrment, which was at another cemetery 30 minutes away. I gave Steve the choice about whether to go to the 2nd site or not, and he said he wanted to go. He said he needed to be there for his friend. At the grave site, he stood there the entire time with his arm around his friend. It is Jewish tradition that people help bury the body, so traditionally each person puts 3 shovelsful of dirt into the grave. It's considered a mitzvah (good deed) to help the person onto their journey into their next life. Needless to say, this took a long time, seemed like forever, really, but those 2 boys stood looking into the open grave, Steve with his arm around his friend until everyone was done.

Then the 30 minute drive back into town for the visit to the shiva home, which wasn't actually their home, since they don't live in town any more. I felt awkward, since I didn't know a soul except the mother, but I was going for Steve.

So after 1 and 1/2 agonizing hours at the house (for me), where Steve kept this kid entertained and laughing, I finally called it quits. I again made sure that they had phone numbers and addresses, and watched them give each other big hugs (I've talked before about how affectionate my son is). We didn't get home until 4:00. Long day.

The worst part of the entire day for me was sitting in the service and discovering exactly what had happened to the man who I found out I actually went to high school with (I never knew!). He had killed himself. My heart goes out to this family and breaks for them. It was breaking even before I learned of this, but now... even more so. Such a shame. I am just so glad that all of that passed right over Steve's head during the service and that we didn't have to have that discussion on top of all the others we had yesterday.

My son is the most compassionate, sensitive, loving, caring, best friend in the world. I can't remember the last time I have been prouder of him. No grade, no musical talent, no anything can replace his innate sense of goodness. And when I told him that at bedtime, he replied back, "Thanks Mom. You're an awesome Mom, too."

I cried when I went to bed last night, but not for the reasons I thought I would earlier in the day.