Sometimes A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

Long post warning: The moment I knew my boy was turning into a great young man and how the right word at the right time has incalculable power.

A year ago today, I took this picture as Caleb and I walked through mom’s apartment together one last time. It was empty and clean. It was an emotional moment.

We stood holding back out tears. Rooms that used to be filled with pictures, Knick knacks, Werther’s original candies, bird seed and feeders were now empty. And there was an emptiness in our lives that felt like it would never go away. How could we go on without this 4’10” dynamo? Worse yet was the sense of finality that came along with turning in her apartment keys. I’d found comfort many times in the days after her death just sitting on the floor in her living room looking out her window imagining the smile on her face as birds fed at one of the feeders just outside.

Neither of us spoke, knowing that opening our mouths to speak would unleash a flood of emotion and we were both trying to be strong for the other. (Not that letting emotion out as men is bad. We both know that and are able to express our emotions – but neither of us wanted to make the moment harder for the other.)

Once we’d been there for a while, I did tell him how grateful I was for the time he’d spent with mom in the last years of her life, hanging out on Tuesday nights, watching Reba or Andy Griffith or Family Fued and eating Mac and cheese, Bojangles or Pizza. I reminded him that mom was so proud of both him and Kaylee. We told a few quick stories, smiled and laughed. Again we got quiet.

As we left and locked up the apartment, I struggled to keep the emotion in check. I walked him to his truck and hugged him and told him I loved. I turned to head to my car to turn in the apartment keys when I heard, “Dad.” “I love you too. I’m proud of you.”

It is incalculable the life he spoke into me in that moment. I knew he loved me but I didn’t feel like much to be proud of in that season. (Let’s face it, many days we all give in to that voice of negativity.). And the fact he sensed it and chose to speak blessing into that when he didn’t have to was overwhelming. It was just the right word at just the right moment. What a grown up thing for a 17 year old to do.

Last night, coming back through Hillsborough, we stopped for food at Bojangles and I asked if he felt like driving by mom and dad’s old house. He agreed. We stopped and took a picture of the place. It’s been kept up and looks good. It was funny, the house I worked so hard to grow up and move out of, suddenly I would give anything just to go back and sit on the couch and watch TV with mom and dad or sit at the old dining room suit and eat fried rice.

Once again we got quiet as we choked down our Bojangles and got back on the road. We shared some things we wished Tinkerbell and Mike could see and be a part of in our lives, shed a few tears and we reminded each other they have the best view where they are.

I reminded him of that moment a year ago today and told him how proud I was of how he’d grown up and how much that moment meant to me.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That is certainly true of the one above. But September 30, 2021, I learned from my 17 year old son that sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures.

Speak life. Speak blessing. There are too many voices speaking death and curses.