To the child I did not know:
You lived and skipped, danced and smiled…hoped and prayed…learned and planned…walking along the white hallways of your side of the building.
And yet our paths did not cross…
The building was too large, the hallways too wide…the days too short…so many children, so many over extended minutes of your planned day, my little man. I walked in your hallway, always en route to something else…purposed toward those other activities; the filing of papers, the planning of lessons, propping up the system…knowing, always knowing that I needed to stop.
So I missed you…
I missed knowing you…
I had to search for a photograph this morning as I grieved. I needed your face to match the sorrow.
I visited the site of your death this afternoon. Your teacher wanted to place flowers at your place of demise…the place where your spirit began an early ascent…back to the God who granted you life…and so we walked there together. Your teacher wept and placed flowers and stood there, stunned with the finality.
After you kicked the recess ball with all the strength and enthusiasm possible in the body of such a tender young boy…kicked with all your might and joy…the ball soared upward and upward as you ran and ran with that little smile. Pure physical energy and sunny spring happiness…and you ran directly into your passing…swooped up by the angels.
They assembled early; sent ahead of time, invisible in the bright sun…snatching you up at the edge of that deadly blacktop, by that smashed fence. You were not left alone…by the grace of God, but caught up in the arms of the beings sent in advance to carry you, carrying you home in the sunny shade of the early afternoon.
Such a homerun for you, little one. You kicked that ball…right into the arms of God.
Missed and mourned, your side of the building is bereft, wounded, shocked…but you are most blessed, my little man…you are blest indeed.
690 Saint Paul 