Bees in My Bonnet

Click here for previous post (part 1)  Sam and I made our way to where we were supposed to find him. We noticed the roads were blocked off and there were lots of flashing lights. "Hmm, there must be an accident ahead - I wonder how we'll get through," I thought. I began to think that maybe there was something ahead, something I didn't know or wasn't ready for. "I'm not going to worry," I kept telling myself. "He sounded fine," I almost spoke the words aloud. The policeman tried waving us past, and we said, "Our son is back there." We were waved past the barriers. We pulled up to an intersection and parked by the roadside. As we got out of the van, Sam reached over and grabbed my hand. I still haven't talked to him about that night. A year has passed and we have hardly processed it. I don't know what he was thinking. I wasn't afraid, yet. I felt the world seemed to slow down. The night air was muggy, damp, and not too h

 You can see that writing for me has ground to a screeching halt (probably literally, in the literal, not figurative, sense). It happened a year ago on this day, one day after Timo's 17th birthday. One year ago on this night, it was a night like any other. Routine. Normal. Kids doing kid things. Caleb and Priscilla back in their first couple weeks of college, away from us. Timo working his full-time tree-trimming job. He had just had a nasty incident with a wasps nest that had caused his entire arm to swell and had to spend a day in bed with fever and chills. He had so many stings we couldn't count them. He was on the mend from that. He had been back at work just a day or two, and the night before we had taken him to an all-you-can-eat dinner which he enjoyed with us - laughing and choosing his favorite foods - mostly meat. We were doing okay. I always carry my own melancholy, and hold a world within me, a reflective, prayerful, yearning. So a year ago, I suppose life was as st