The Funeral

My son and I went to the funeral of his 17-year-old friend. It was the saddest funeral I have ever attended. All of the feelings I had about losing a child came to the surface when I saw the boy's mother. I couldn't help but picture myself in her position--it was gut-wrenching. They played a song about a mother giving her son to God--how she sang to him as a baby/watched him grow as a boy/and let go of him in his youth--there was no way to hear that song without seeing visions of my own son growing up. When the coffin passed by, I couldn't help but imagine if MY boy was in that box. Though I didn't know them well, I cried for them--I cried for the grief of losing a son--I cried for their empty arms--I cried a mother's tears. They talked about the sadness of never attending his high school graduation, never seeing him get married, and never holding the grandchildren he may have given them--I imagined seeing my son experience these special moments, then I imagined if he did not live to do these things. There is no way a mother can watch another mother suffer without feeling some of her pain. There is no way to face the fact that her son is gone without imagining what that would be like in her own family. My son grieved for his friend and I grieved for the mother. Attending the funeral as mother and son, and watching a mother lose her son--it was almost too much to bear. My heart aches for them.