I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye

Untold times a day I glance at the photo of my son with his sisters, the wallpaper on my phone. His older sister, now employed for four years, a millennial professional with an expense account and a career, stands next to him in cap and gown. She is holding her college diploma, a big smile …

We lost Max a year ago last week, lost being a poor euphemism for his death. We actually don’t know when we lost him, when our 21-year-old son, our middle child, our two daughters’ only brother, began to slip silently from our embrace. It is the largest of the many unanswerable mysteries he left behind. …