I was out for a walk tonight, heading up Oakwood past McAuley High School when I passed another walker going in the opposite direction. He stopped as I walked by and said, "Can I talk to you for a minute? I'm not going to ask you for money, I promise." I stopped, and when I looked in his eyes, I realized he was crying. Before I could say anything, he said, "I'm trying to find a church--any church. They told me there was one around here, but I can't find it." I pointed up the street, across busy Belmont Avenue, to the treeline where you could just make out the steeple of the local Church of Christ. "Are you looking for a particular denomination?" I asked. I guess it was his tears: there was something about him that broke my heart. That's when I noticed the small plastic dinosaur in hand. "I'm sorry," he said. " I must sound crazy. I'm not crazy. My son died today, and I have to find a church. I'm carrying this like a crazy person," he said, waving the dinosaur. "It was his."
He couldn't see the steeple in the trees, so I walked with him to the corner, and we talked some about his son. He was still crying, but he managed to tell me that his wife had been driving his son down a busy nearby street when another car plowed into the passenger side. His four-year-old son was killed, and his wife was injured. He told me that he didn't know what to do, that he didn't know if he believed in God, but that he knew he had to go to a church. He'd left Mercy Hospital after they'd told him his son was dead --he hadn't been in the car--and he just started walking. We said a few more words; I told him how sorry I was for all he'd been through, for his loss, and then I pointed to the long church driveway winding up through the trees.
After we parted company, I started to worry that the church would be locked on a Monday night, so I turned at the next corner, heading up the street to the front of the church. When I got to the parking lot, I saw three or four cars, and I stood there for awhile, trying to convince myself that the doors were open and that he would have found the pastor, maybe, or somebody else who could give him some kind of comfort. I tried to do that, but I couldn't get myself to walk by. I walked up the steep parking lot, instead, and just as I got to the top of the rise, I saw him walking up the back driveway. I told him that I wanted to make sure he got in. We walked to the door, but it was locked. There was a parishioner in the lot, and I explained that the man with me needed to speak to someone--that he'd just lost his son. I could tell the man was afraid I was trying to con him. He recommended the chapel at the hospital, and that seemed to make sense to my companion.
We started walking again, this time toward the hospital, and my companion introduced himself to me. "I'm Eric," he said. I told him my name, and he started pouring the whole story out to me. The car that had caused the accident was driven by a teenager with three of his friends inside. In the glove box, the police found a couple of illegal guns and speculated that they were up to no good. Eric asked me why his son had to die but these kids were still alive. He told me that he was a veteran, and that the only thing that had kept him going was his son. He said he was a daddy's boy. He said he didn't really feel much for his wife anymore, but that his son was his whole world. He asked me what he should do next, that he'd never had to deal with the death of a loved one, and he didn't know what the next step was. He told me that he'd gone a little crazy at the hospital. The police came to his house that afternoon, saying simply that his wife had been in an accident, and that he should follow them to the hospital. He asked about his son, but the cop played dumb. Once they got there, he asked again about his son--his wife was in surgery--and they finally told him. Actually, he said that all they had to do was look at him and he knew, He said he "went crazy" then, and that the police asked him to leave the hospital. That's when he started walking in search of a church.
"This will sound crazy," he said, "but I knew before the cops came that something bad happened. I heard sirens, and I just had a feeling. I think it was my fault," he said. I asked him how it could be his fault if he wasn't even there, and he said that he'd talked to his son right before the accident and told him he was going to buy him a video game he'd been wanting--that it would be there at home when he got back. He said that his son was so excited that they'd changed their afternoon plans and headed home, instead, and that's when it happened. "If I hadn't of told him about that game, he would have spent the afternoon at his cousin's, and he'd still be alive." Eric really started crying then. I told him that it didn't sound to me like he was responsible for his son's death--that it sounded like he had made his son happy. It sounded like he loved him and would never hurt him.
By then, we were near enough to the hospital that I knew we should part company. He thanked me for walking with him, and I wished him well. I told him to ask them for the chaplain when he got there, and I watched him cross the street and walk off into the night, carrying his burden and that little plastic dinosaur with him. I turned and walked home alone.
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