07/21/2013

   The first Saturday of my new life would actually turn out to be enlightening and comforting in several ways beyond what I could have imagined when I awoke and realized anew that my son was still gone.
First of all, a friend stopped by to tell us that the memorial on the median was getting larger by the hour, so I decided to walk down to the intersection to see for myself. It was true. Even though it was still fairly early in the day, there were a lot more things that had been left than had been there the night before. This was when I found out that some of the kids' friends had been there all night, because they were able to tell me who had brought some of the objects in memory of Curtis. They'd witnessed some of the people coming and going. Secondly, as I was waiting at the traffic signal to cross the street, I felt someone hug me from behind. It happened to be an acquaintance of ours from our local baseball league with whom we had recently had some rather heated exchanges and hurt feelings due to his treatment of some of the players, including Curtis. He expressed his condolences and uttered a sort of apology for his part in what had happened during the baseball season. I didn't have any energy at the moment to continue this fight, so I accepted his sentiments and went back to waiting for the light to change. It was then that I noticed some familiar faces out on the median. They were teacher colleagues of mine who had come out to our area that day to take a test, the same test I had been studying for the night of the accident. In fact, I was supposed to have been taking the test with them that morning. Curtis had ben a student at our school up through Fifth Grade, so many of these people were not just my co-workers, but had been Curtis's teachers, as well. It was actually very good to see them and realize that Curtis had touched their lives in such a positive way. They surrounded me with their love and concern and even came back to the house to spend some time with us. They wanted to know how they and the rest of the staff  at my school  could support us.  I found their presence very comforting. While I had been down at the intersection, a visitor stopped by our house. She turned out to be a nurse who had been stopped at the intersection waiting for the signal light to change on the night of the accident. She witnessed the collision that killed Curtis and his friends. My wife finally found out a little more information about exactly what had happened to our son that night.