I have learned that each life, no matter how fragile or brief – forever changes the world. I have always said that the angels danced the day my boys were born. Their birthdays were two of the happiest days of my life. Three years ago I woke up on a Monday morning lovingly reflecting back 17 years to the day of Michael’s birth I remembered holding him as he took his first breaths of life, and marveling at the wonder of his being – never in my wildest imagination did I think later on that day I would hold Michael on the day of birth, and embrace him as he took his last breathes of life. There is a reason I share the single most horrific moment of my life – the death of my child. The idea that another family would ever suffer the agony, the heartache, the pain, the horror of their child dying such as we have lends me the strength to discuss the bullycide of my child. Unbeknownst to us Michael had come under attack by a well-known abuser whose sense of humor was that of a sociopath. Our son’s abuser had a behavioral file a mile wide, and this young man sat behind our son in his fourth period class and tormented him unmercifully. Unbeknownst to us, this abuser had set his sights on our son, and thought it would be funny to tell the world that Michael was gay, even though Michael never self-identified as being gay.
When I think of all that I had, and all that I have lost I know one thing forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves in order to have peace, and in my mind’s eye I can still see the young man my son was on the brink of becoming – the other night I heard something that simply resonated with me, ”down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean”, Michael was a well-loved young man who was exceptional he was not mean, and because of that he paid a dear price for being the gentle soul that he was. I leave you with this –“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us; when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts”.
I remain forever Michael’s mother.
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