Boyhood Grace

A short while ago, I got the news that a childhood friend had been killed in a car accident. This was someone whom I had not seen for years. His parents were good friends of my folks and members of our extended church community; good people for whom my heart now aches. I'm a dad, and I can't imagine anything worse than losing a child, at any age, in any way.

The funeral home up in Parry Sound was packed, apparently. That's always the case when a bright young light is extinguished too early in a town where everyone knows everyone. For my part, I didn't even hear the news until the gathering was over, and I didn't know what to do.

So I did something instinctive. I called up all my memories of this kid I'd known only as a boy, pressed "record" on a borrowed electric piano, and let my fingers weep. I haven't really played the piano since I was a child. I felt like it was a child's fingers that played this strange, sad little tune.

I call it Boyhood Grace. I'm afraid it's all I can do or say.